Cantar de Los Cantares

The Song of Songs
A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or

The Song of Songs
by Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm.
Edited by
S. Dean McBride, Jr.
Fortress
Press Minneapolis
The Song of Songs
A commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs
1990 Augsburg Fortress
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be
reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write to: Permissions,
Augsburg Fortress, 426 S. Fifth St., Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.
Scripture quotations are the authors own translation.
Excerpt from Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Marvin H. Pope,
copyright 1977 by Doubleday. Used by permission. Excerpts from The Harps That Once : Sumerian
Poetry in Translation by Thorkild Jacobsen, copyright 1987 by Yale University Press. Used by
permission. Excerpts from The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and
Poetry, edited by William Kelly Simpson, copyright 1972 by Yale University Press. Used by
permission.
Cover and internal design by Kenneth Hiebert Typesetting on an Ibycus System at Polebridge Press
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Murphy, Roland Edmund, 1917
The Song of songs: a commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of songs / by Roland E. Murphy:
edited by S. Dean McBride, Jr.
p. cm. (Hermeneiaa critical and historical commentary on the Bible)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8006-6024-2
1. Bible. O.T. Song of SolomonCommentaries.
I. McBride, S. Dean (Samuel Dean), 1937.
II. Bible. O.T. Song of Solomon.
III. Title.
IV. Series.
BS1485.3.M87 1990
223.9077-dc20 89-16891
CIP
Hermeneia
A Critical
and Historical
Commentary
on the Bible
Old Testament Editorial Board
Frank Moore Cross, Harvard University, chairman
Klaus Baltzer, University of Munich
Paul D. Hanson, Harvard University
S. Dean McBride, Jr., Union Theological Seminary in Virginia
Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm., Duke University
New Testament Editorial Board
Helmut Koester, Harvard University, chairman
Harold W. Attridge, University of Notre Dame
Adela Yarbro Collins, University of Notre Dame
Eldon Jay Epp, Case Western Reserve University
James M. Robinson, Claremont Graduate School
IN MEMORIAM
MSGR. PATRICK W. SKEHAN
Contents
The Song of Songs Foreword to Hermeneia
Preface
Reference Codes
1. Abbreviations
a/ Sources, Secondary Literature, and General
b/ Textual Sigla
2. Short Titles
Editors Note
Introduction
1. Authorship, Date, and Canonicity
2. Hebrew Text and Traditional Versions
3. History of Interpretation
A. Early Jewish Interpretation of the Song and the Emergence of Christian Allegorical Exposition
B. Origen of the Song of Songs
C. Christian Interpretation in the Middle Ages
D. Jewish Interpretation in the Middle Ages
E. From the Reformation to the Modern Era
4. Literature of Love: Ancient Near Eastern Texts
A. Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry
B. Cuneiform Sources
5. Literary Character and Structure of the Song
A. Overall Classification (Gattung)
B. Component Genres
C. Structural Integrity
6. Aspect of Composition and Style
A. Language
B. Literary Topoi
C. Prosody
7. Meaning and Theological Significance
A. Contemporary Interpretations: Review and Assessment
B. The Quality of Love, Human and Divine
Translation
Commentary
1:1* Superscription: Solomons Finest Song?

*
1
The Song of Songs, which is Solomons.
Song of Solomon 1:1 (NRSV)
1:26* A Love More Pleasing Than Wine
1:72:7* A Dialogue Between the Lovers

*
2
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine,
3
your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you.
4
Draw me after you, let us make haste. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exult and
rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.
5
I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of
Solomon.
6
Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has gazed on me. My mothers sons were angry
with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!
*
7
Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon;
for why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?
8
If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your kids
beside the shepherds tents.
9
I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaohs chariots.
10
Your cheeks are comely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.
11
We will make you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.
12
While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.
13
My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts.
14
My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.
15
Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.
16
Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. Our couch is green;
17
the beams of our house are cedar, our rafters are pine.
1
I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
2
As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens.
2:817* A Reminiscence Concerning the Lovers Visit
3:15* Loss and Discovery

3
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I
sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love.
5
Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.
(Only first 15 verses of range shown)
Song of Solomon 1:72:7 (NRSV)
*
8
The voice of my beloved! Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.
9
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the
windows, looking through the lattice.
10
My beloved speaks and says to me: Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away;
11
for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
12
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is
heard in our land.
13
The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love,
my fair one, and come away.
14
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your
voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
15
Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards for our vineyards are in blossom.
16
My beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies.
17
Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on the
cleft mountains.
*
1
Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him,
but he gave no answer.
3:611* Solomons Procession
4:15:1* A Dialogue Between the Lovers

2
I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul
loves. I sought him, but found him not.
3
The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. Have you seen him whom my soul loves?
4
Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him
go until I brought him into my mothers house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
5
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love
until it is ready!
*
6
What is that coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and
frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?
7
Look, it is the litter of Solomon! Around it are sixty mighty men of the mighty men of Israel,
8
all equipped with swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh because of alarms by
night.
9
King Solomon made himself a palanquin from the wood of Lebanon.
10
He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with
love.Daughters of Jerusalem,
11
come out. Look, O daughters of Zion, at King Solomon, at the crown with which his mother crowned
him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.
*
1
How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is
like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead.
2
Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins,
and not one among them is bereaved.
3
Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a
pomegranate behind your veil.
5:26:3* A Dialogue Between the Woman and the Daughters

4
Your neck is like the tower of David, built in courses; on it hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields
of warriors.
5
Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies.
6
Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of
frankincense.
7
You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.
8
Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana,
from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.
9
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your
eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.
10
How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride! how much better is your love than wine, and the
fragrance of your oils than any spice!
11
Your lips distill nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is
like the scent of Lebanon.
12
A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed.
13
Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard,
14
nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief
spices
15
a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.
16
Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden that its fragrance may be
wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.
*
2
I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! my beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my love, my
dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.
3
I had put off my garment; how could I put it on again? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them?
4
My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him.
6:412* Praise of the Womans Unique Beauty

5
I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon
the handles of the bolt.
6
I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I
sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer.
7
Making their rounds in the city the sentinels found me; they beat me, they wounded me, they took
away my mantle, those sentinels of the walls.
8
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love.
9
What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved
more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?
10
My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand.
11
His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven.
12
His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set.
13
His cheeks are like beds of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh.
14
His arms are rounded gold, set with jewels. His body is ivory work,encrusted with sapphires.
15
His legs are alabaster columns, set upon bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the
cedars.
16
His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O
daughters of Jerusalem.
1
Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Which way has your beloved turned, that we
may seek him with you?
*
4
You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners.
5
Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me! Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down
the slopes of Gilead.
6
Your teeth are like a flock of ewes, that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins, and
not one among them is bereaved.
7:1[6:13]8:4* The Union of Lovers

7
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.
8
There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number.
9
My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the darling of her mother, flawless to her that bore her. The
maidens saw her and called her happy; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.
10
Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army with
banners?
11
I went down to the nut orchard, to look at the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vines had
budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom.
12
Before I was aware, my fancy set me in a chariot beside my prince.
*
13
Return, return, O Shulammite! Return, return, that we may look upon you. Why should you look upon
the Shulammite, as upon a dance before two armies?
1
How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work
of a master hand.
2
Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with
lilies.
3
Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
4
Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose
is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus.
5
Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the
tresses.
6
How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden!
7
You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters.
8
I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O may your breasts be like clusters of the
vine, and the scent of your breath like apples,
9
and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.
10
I am my beloveds, and his desire is for me.
8:514* Appendices

11
Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages;
12
let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape
blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.
13
The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which
I have laid up for you, O my beloved.
1
O that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mothers breast! If I met you outside, I would
kiss you, and no one would despise me.
2
I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, and into the chamber of the one who
bore me.I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranates.
*
5
Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? Under the apple tree I
awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor.
6
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as
the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.
7
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of
ones house, it would be utterly scorned.
8
We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister, on the day when she is
spoken for?
9
If she is a wall, we will build upon her a battlement of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her
with boards of cedar.
10
I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who brings peace.
11
Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring
for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.
12
My vineyard, my very own, is for myself; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of
the fruit two hundred!
13
O you who dwell in the gardens, my companions are listening for your voice; let me hear it.
14
Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of spices!
Bibliography
1. Commentaries to the Song of Songs
a/ Pre-nineteenth Century
b/ Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
2. Books, Monographic Studies, and Articles
a/ Overviews and General Treatments of the Song
b/ Text and Language
c/ Canonization and History of Interpretation
d/ Near Eastern Sources and Comparative Studies
e/ Literary Structure, Genre, Character, and Aesthetics
f/ Meaning and Theological Significance
g/ Particular Passages and Issues
Indices
1. Texts
b/ Old Testament Apocrypha
c/ Ancient Near Eastern Literature
d/ Qumran, Early Jewish, and Classical Rabbinic Sources
e/ Greek and Roman Authors
2. Hebrew Words
3. Subjects
4. Commentators and Other Authors
Foreword
The name Hermeneia, Greek , has been chosen as the title of the commentary series to
which this volume belongs. The word Hermeneia has a rich background in the history of biblical
interpretation as a term used in the ancient Greek-speaking world for the detailed, systematic
exposition of a scriptural work. It is hoped that the series, like the name, will carry forward this
old and venerable tradition. A second, entirely practical reason for selecting the name lies in the
desire to avoid a long descriptive title and its inevitable acronym, or worse, an unpronounceable
abbreviation.
The series is designed to be a critical and historical commentary to the Bible without
arbitrary limits in size or scope. It will utilize the full range of philological and historical tools,
including textual criticism (often slighted in modern commentaries), the methods of the history
of tradition (including genre and prosodic analysis), and the history of religion.
Hermeneia is designed for the serious student of the Bible. It will make full use of ancient
Semitic and classical languages; at the same time, English translations of all comparative
materialsGreek, Latin, Canaanite, or Akkadianwill be supplied alongside the citation of the
source in its original language. Insofar as possible, the aim is to provide the student or scholar
with full critical discussion of each problem of interpretation and with the primary data upon
which the discussion is based.
Hermeneia is designed to be international and interconfessional in the selection of authors;
its editorial boards were formed with this end in view. Occasionally the series will offer
translations of distinguished commentaries which originally appeared in languages other than
English. Published volumes of the series will be revised continually, and eventually, new

commentaries will replace older works in order to preserve the currency of the series.
Commentaries are also being assigned for important literary works in the categories of
apocryphal and pseudepigraphical works relating to the Old and New Testaments, including
some of Essene or Gnostic authorship.
The editors of Hermeneia impose no systematic-theological perspective upon the series
(directly, or indirectly by selection of authors). It is expected that authors will struggle to lay bare
the ancient meaning of a biblical work or pericope. In this way the texts human relevance
should become transparent, as is always the case in competent historical discourse. However, the
series eschews for itself homiletical translation of the Bible.
The editors are heavily indebted to Fortress Press for its energy and courage in taking up an
expensive, long-term project, the rewards of which will accrue chiefly to the field of biblical
scholarship.
The editor responsible for this volume is S. Dean McBride, Jr., of Union Theological
Seminary in Virginia.
Frank Moore
Cross
Helmut Koester
For the Old
Testament
For the New Testament
Editorial Board Editorial Board
Preface
Biblical commentaries complement each other; each one has strengths and weaknesses, and can
be used accordingly. Many examples of this complementarity could be cited. The most
formidable recent commentary on the Song of Songs is that of Marvin H. Pope (1977). It
embodies the authors massive erudition in linguistics and comparative materials, which will
retain their value for a long time to come. But it offers more an attempt to discern a prehistory of
the text than an interpretation of the biblical book as it now stands in the canon. Previously,
Andr Roberts commentary (1963) presented incisive grammatical and textual observations, in
the scholarly manner that characterized the work of that great French scholar. Despite his views
favoring an allegorical understanding of the Song, his exegetical labors remain valuable for one
who confronts the issues of the Hebrew text.
Like all commentaries, the present work rests on the labors of past scholars. It aims to
explain the sense and meaning of the biblical text as adequately as possible. This has required
that decisions be made where there are problems and ambiguities in the text, which in many
cases have given rise to a plethora of varying interpretations. The reader should not be spared
confrontation with difficulties that the text presents; but the myriad scholarly interpretations of
specific passages is another matter. A certain parsimony is desirable here, because a detailed
listing or exposition of views that differ with those proferred by the present author would be
more distraction than help for most readers. The effort to provide a coherent and consistent
commentary may be guilty of unintentional injustices to previous scholarship, but it has the
advantage of clarity.
The author is indebted to more than commentaries. He is particularly grateful to his graduate
students at Duke University, who were first exposed to this interpretation of the Song of Songs.
Several of them aided in commenting on the growing manuscript, and helped in the expansion of
references and bibliography. Special thanks are due to John B. White, Carole R. Fontaine,
Claudia Camp, and Elizabeth Huwiler. Nancy Rosebaugh typed the manuscript handily and the
secretarial pool of the Duke University Divinity School patiently reproduced many pages that
had been disfigured by my revisions. Most of all, I am indebted to S. Dean McBride, Jr., the
editor of the volume, for his wise suggestions, careful editing, and encouragement.
This work is dedicated to the memory of Msgr. Patrick W. Skehan, who was an inspiring
example to me and to many others during his tenure in the department of Semitic languages at
the Catholic University of America (19381981).
May 24,
1990
Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm.
G. W. Ivey Professor Emeritus
Duke University

Reference Codes
1. Abbreviations
a / Sources, Secondary Literature, and General
AB Anchor Bible (ed. William Foxwell Albright et al.)
ACW Ancient Christian Writers
AfO Archiv fr Orientforschung
AHW Akkadisches Handwrterbuch, 3 Vols. (ed. Wolfram von Soden; Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 195981).
AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures
Am Amos
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ANEP The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (ed. James B. Pritchard; Princeton: Princeton University, 1954).
ANET
3
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (ed. James B. Pritchard; Princeton: Princeton University,
3
1969).
AnOr Analecta Orientalia
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
AOS American Oriental Series
ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute (Jerusalem)
ATD Das Alte Testament Deutsch (ed. Volkmar Herntrich and Artur Weiser).
AV Authorized (King James) Version (1611)
b. Babylonian Talmud (followed by name of tractate)
Bar Baruch
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BAT Die Botschaft des Alten Testaments
BC Biblischer Commentar ber das Alte Testament (ed. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch)
B.C.E. Before the Common Era (= B.C.)
BeO Bibbia e Oriente
BET Beitrge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
BH
3
Biblia Hebraica (ed. Rudolph Kittel et al.; Stuttgart: Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt,
3
1937).
BHS Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (ed. Karl Elliger and Wilhelm Rudolph; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung, 196777).
Bib Biblica
BibOr Biblica et Orientalia

ed. editors/edited by
Vols. Volumes
BKAT Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament (ed. Martin Noth et al.)
BLS Bible and Literature Series
BMik Beth Mikra
BOT De boeken van het Oude Testament
BT The Bible Today
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BTr The Bible Translator
BVC Bible et vie chrtienne
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
c. circa, about
CAD The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (ed. A. Leo Oppenheim et al.; Chicago: University
of Chicago, 1956).
Cant Canticles/Song of Songs
Cant. Rab. Midrash Rabbah to Canticles/Song of Songs
CBC The Cambridge Bible Commentary, New English Bible (ed. Peter R. Ackroyd et al.)
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina
C.E. Common Era (= A.D.)
Cf. Compare/consult with
CFS Cistercian Fathers Series
CFTL Clarks Foreign Theological Library
CHB The Cambridge History of the Bible, 3 Vols. (Cambridge: University Press, 1970 [Vol. 1: ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans];
1969 [Vol. 2: ed. G. W. H. Lampe]; 1963 [Vol. 3: ed. S. L. Greenslade]).
Chr Chronicles
col(s). column(s)
Com Commentary
Cor Corinthians
COT Commentaar op het Oude Testament
CRB Cahiers de la Revue biblique
CSCL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CTA Ugaritic texts, cited according to: Andre Herdner, Corpus des tablettes en cuniformes alphabtiques dcouvertes Ras
ShamraUgarit de 1929 1939, 2 Vols. (Mission de Ras Shamra 10; Paris: Imprimerie
Nationale/Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1963).
d. (year of) death
Dan Daniel
DB Dictionnaire de la Bible, 5 Vols. (ed. F. Vigouroux and Louis Pirot; Paris: Letouzey et An, 18991928).
DBSup Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplment (ed. Louis Pirot et al.; Paris: Letouzey et An, 1928).
DD Dor le Dor
Deut Deuteronomy
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
Eccl Ecclesiastes
ed(s). editor(s)/edited by

Vol. Volume
e.g. For example
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16 Vols. (ed. Cecil Roth et al.; Jerusalem: Keter, 19711972).
esp. especially
Est Esther
EstBib Estudios Bblicos
et al. and others
tB tudes bibliques
ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses
Exod Exodus
Ezek Ezekiel
Ezr Ezra
fig(s). figure(s)
FOTL The Forms of the Old Testament Literature (ed. Rolf Knierim and Gene M. Tucker).
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte
Gen Genesis
GHB Paul Joon, Grammaire de lhbreu biblique (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute,
2
1947).
GHG Gesenius Hebrew Grammar (ed. E. Kautzsch; tr. and rev. A. E. Cowley; Oxford: Clarendon,
2
1910).
Hab Habakkuk
HAT Handbuch zum Alten Testament (ed. Otto Eissfeldt)
HB Herder Bibelkommentar: Die Heilige Schrift fr das Leben erklrt
HELOT A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (ed. Francis Brown, Samuel R. Driver, and Charles Briggs; Oxford:
Clarendon, 1907).
HK Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (ed. Wilhelm Nowack)
Hos Hosea
HS Die heilige Schrift des Alten Testamentes (ed. Franz Feldmann and Heinrich Herkenne)
HSyn Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline (Toronto: University of Toronto,
2
1976).
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
IDB The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, 4 Vols. (ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al.; New York/Nashville: Abingdon, 1962).
IDBSup The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume (ed. Keith Crim et al.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1976).
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
Int Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
Isa Isaiah
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JAC Jahrbuch fr Antike und Christentum
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
Jdt Judith
JE The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 Vols. (ed. Isidore Singer et al.; New York/London: Funk and Wagnalls, 19011916).
JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
Jer Jeremiah
JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JPOS Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society

tr. translator/translated by
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series
JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
Judg Judges
KAT Kommentar zum Alten Testament (ed. Ernst Sellin et al.)
KBANT Kommentare und Beitrge zum Alten und Neuen Testament
KEH Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch
Kgs Kings
KHC Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament (ed. Karl Marti et al.)
KK Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testamentes (ed. Hermann Strack and Otto Zckler)
l(l). line(s)
Lam Lamentations
LBS Library of Biblical Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library
LD Lectio Divina
LVTL Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (ed. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner; Leiden: E. J. Brill,
3
1967).
LW Luthers Works (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan et al.; Saint Louis: Concordia; Philadelphia: Fortress).
m. Mishnah (followed by name of tractate)
Macc Maccabees
Matt Matthew
Mic Micah
MGWJ Monatsschrift fr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums
MTZ Mnchener Theologische Zeitschrift
NAB The New American Bible (1970)
NEB The New English Bible (1970)
NEchB Die Neue Echter Bibel (ed. Josef G. Plger et al.)
N.F. Neue Folge
NIV The New International Version (1978)
NJV The New Jewish Publication Society Version (1982) [Kethubim])
no(s). number(s)
N.S. New Series
Num Numbers
OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis (ed. Othmar Keel et al.)
OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology (ed. Walter Brueggemann and John R. Donahue)
OTM Old Testament Message: A Biblical Theological Commentary
OTS Oudtestamentische Studin
p(p). page(s), of the present volume
PAPS Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
par. paragraph
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca (ed. Jacques-Paul Migne)
pl(s). plates(s)
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina (ed. Jacques-Paul Migne)
PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Language Association
Prov Proverbs
Ps Psalm(s)
RB Revue biblique
RCT Revista Catalana de Teologia
rev. revision/revised by
RivB Rivista Biblica
RGG
3
Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 Vols. (ed. Hans F. von Campenhausen et al.; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],
3
19571965).
RHPR Revue dhistoire et de philosophie religieuses
Rom Romans
RQ Revue de Qumrn
RSO Rivista degli Studi Orientali
RSR Recherches de science religieuse
RSV The Revised Standard Version (1952 [Old Testament]; 1957 [Apocrypha])
RThom Revue thomiste
Sam Samuel
SAT Die Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl (ed. Hermann Gunkel et al.)
SBLDS Society of Biblical Literature, Dissertation Series
SBS Stuttgarter Bibelstudien
SC Sources chrtiennes
Scr Scripture
Sir Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)
SJ Studia Judaica
SH Scripta Hierosolymitana
SPIB Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici
t. Tosephta (followed by name of tractate)
TB Theologische Bcherei
TBC Torch Bible Commentaries
Tg. Targum
Tg. Onq. Targum Onqelos
Tob Tobit
TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries
TQ Theologische Quartalschrift
tr(s). translator(s)/translated by
TRu Theologische Rundschau
TU Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur
TZ Theologische Zeitschrift
UU Uppsala Universitets rsskrift
UT Ugaritic texts, cited according to: Cyrus H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook (AnOr 38; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1965).
Vol(s). Volume(s)
VT Vetus Testamentum
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
WA Weimarer Ausgabe = D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus, 1883)
Wis Wisdom of Solomon
ZAW Zeitschrift fr die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZBAT Zrcher Bibelkommentare, Altes Testament (ed. Hans Heinrich Schmid and Siegfried Schulz)
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlndischen Gesellschaft
Zech Zechariah
ZKT Zeitschrift fr katholische Theologie
ZTK Zeitschrift fr Theologie und Kirche
b / Textual Sigla
G Old Greek version (Septuagint)
G
A
Codex Alexandrinus
G
B
Codex Vaticanus
G
S
Codex Sinaiticus
L Old Latin version
M Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible
M
L
Leningrad Codex
Q Qumran documents
1QapGen Genesis Apocryphon from Qumran Cave 1
6QCant Canticles scroll from Qumran Cave 6
E Syriac Peshita version
B Vulgate version
The Greek translation of Aquila
The Greek translation of Theodotion
The Greek translation of Symmachus
2. Short Title List
Albright, Archaic Survivals
William Foxwell Albright, Archaic Survivals in the Text of Canticles, Hebrew and Semitic Studies
Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver (ed. D. Winton Thomas and W. D. McHardy; Oxford: Clarendon,
1963) 17.
Audet, Le sens
Jean-Paul Audet, Le sens du Cantique des cantiques, RB 62 (1955) 197221.
Audet, Love
Jean-Paul Audet, Love and Marriage in the Old Testament [tr. F. Burke] Scr 10 (1958) 6583.
Bea
Augustinus Bea, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis quod hebraice dicitur r Harm (SPIB 104; Rome:
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1953).
Broadribb, Thoughts
Donald Broadribb, Thoughts on the Song of Solomon, Abr-Nahrain 3 (196162 [Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1963]) 1136.
Budde
Karl Budde, Das Hohelied erklrt in Karl Budde, Alfred Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die fnf
Megillot (Das Hohelied, Das Buck Ruth, Die Klagelieder, Der Prediger, Das Buch Esther) (KHC 6;
Freiburg/Leipzig/Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1898) IX48.
Childs, Introduction
Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979).
Delitzsch

RB Revue biblique
Scr Scripture
Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes (tr. M. G. Easton; CFTL 4/54;
Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891.
Eissfeldt, Old Testament
Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (tr. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York/Evanston: Harper
and Row, 1965).
Exum, Analysis
J. Cheryl Exum, A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs, ZAW 85 (1973) 4779.
Feuillet
Andr Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques: tude de thologie biblique et rflexions sur une mthode
dexgse (LD 10; Paris: Cerf, 1953).
Fox
Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1985).
Fuerst
Wesley J. Fuerst, The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five
Scrolls (CBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975).
Gerleman
Gillis Gerleman, Ruth, Das Hohelied (BKAT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1965).
Ginsburg
Christian David Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth (LBS; New York: Ktav, 1970 [reprinting The
Song of Songs, Translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Historical and Critical
(London: 1857)]).
Gordis
Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary
(New York: Ktav,
2
1974).
Greer, Origen
Rowan A. Greer, Origen (The Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Ramsey; Toronto: Paulist,
1979).
Hanson, Allegory
R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origens Interpretation
of Scripture (London: SCM; Richmond: John Knox, 1959).
Hermann, Liebesdichtung
Alfred Hermann, Altgyptische Liebesdichtung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959).
Horst, Formen
Friedrich Horst, Die Formen des althebrischen Liebesliedes in Friedrich Horst, Gottes Recht:
Gesammelte Studien zum Recht im Alten Testament (ed. Hans Walter Wolff; TB 12; Mnchen: Chr.
Kaiser, 1961) 176187.
Jacobsen, Harps
Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once : Sumerian Poetry in Translation (New Haven/London: Yale
University, 1987).
Jacobsen, Treasures

LD Lectio Divina
Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New
Haven/London: Yale University, 1976).
Joon
Paul Joon, Le Cantique des Cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exgtique (Paris: Gabriel
Beauchesne,
2
1909).
Keel
Othmar Keel, Das Hohelied (ZBAT 18; Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1986).
Keel, Metaphorik
Othmar Keel, Deine Blicke sind Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes (SBS 114115; Stuttgart:
Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984).
Kramer, Studies
Cuneiform Studies and the History of Literature: The Sumerian Sacred Marriage Texts, PAPS 107
(1963) 485516.
G. Krinetzki
Gnter Krinetzki, Hoheslied (NEchB; Wrzburg: Echter, 1980).
L. Krinetzki
Leo Krinetzki, Das Hohe Lied: Kommentar zu Gestalt und Kerygma eines alttestamentlichen Liebesliedes
(KBANT; Dsseldorf: Patmos, 1964).
Kuhn
Gottfried Kuhn, Erklrung des Hohen Liedes (Leipzig: A. Deichert [Werner Scholl], 1926).
Lauterbach, Mekilta
Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, 3 Vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication of America,
1933).
Lawson
R. P. Lawson, Origen: The Song of Songs. Commentary and Homilies (ACW 26; Westminster, Maryland:
Newman; London: Longman, Green, 1957).
Lichtheim, Literature 2
Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings, Vol. 2: The New Kingdom
(Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 1976).
Loewe, Apologetic Motifs
Raphael Loewe, Apologetic Motifs in the Targum to the Song of Songs in Alexander Altmann (ed.),
Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations (Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Studies, Brandeis
University, Studies and Texts 3; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1966) 159196.
Loretz

Oswald Loretz, Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische Liebeslied. Untersuchungen zur
Stichometrie und Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45. Psalms (AOAT 14/1; Kevelaer:
Butzon & Bercker; and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971).
Loretz, Eros
Oswald Loretz, Zom Problem des Eros im Hohenlied, BZ N.F. 8 (1964) 191216.
Lys
Daniel Lys, Le plus beau chant de la cration: Commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques (LD 51; Paris:
Cerf, 1968).
Meek
Theophile J. Meek, The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegesis in George Arthur Buttrick et al.
(eds.), The Interpreters Bible, Vol. 5 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1956) 89148.
Miller
Athanasius Miller, Das Hohe Lied bersetzt und erklrt (HS 6/3; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1927).
Murphy, Wisdom Literature
Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther (FOTL
13; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1981).
Nolli
Gianfranco Nolli, Cantico dei Cantici (La Sacra Bibbia; Torino/Roma: Marietti. 1968).
Ohly, Studien
Friedrich Ohly, Hohelied-Studien. Grundzge einer Geschichte der Hohenliedauslegung des Abendlandes
bis um 1200 (Schriften der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt
Frankfurt am Main, Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe 1; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1958).
Pope
Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7c; Garden
City: Doubleday, 1977).
Ricciotti
Giuseppe Ricciotti, Il Cantico dei Cantici: Versione critica dal testo ebraico con introduzione e
commento (Torino: Societ editrice internazionale, 1928).
Ringgren
Helmer Ringgren, Das Hohe Lied in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied, Klagelieder,
Das Buch Esther: bersetzt und erklrt (ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958) 137.
Robert
Andr Robert; and Raymond Tournay, with Andr Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques: traduction et
commentaire (tB; Paris: Libraire Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1963).

N.F. Neue Folge
tB tudes bibliques
Rowley, Interpretation
Harold H. Rowley, The Interpretation of the Song of Songs in Harold H. Rowley, The Servant of the
Lord and Other Essays (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
2
1965) 195245.
Rudolph
Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth, Das Hohe Lied, Die Klogelieder (KAT 17/13; Gtersloh:
Gtersloher Verlagshaus [Gerd Mohn], 1962).
Scheper, Spiritual Marriage
George L. Scheper, The Spiritual Marriage: The Exegetic History and Literary Impact of the Song of
Songs in the Middle Ages (Ph.D. dissertation; Princeton University, 1971).
Segal, Song
Morris [Moshe] Hirsch Segal, The Song of Songs, VT 12 (1962) 470490.
Simon
Maurice Simon (tr.), Song of Songs in Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 (ed. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon;
London: Soncino, 1930).
Simpson, Literature
William Kelly Simpson (ed.), The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and
Poetry (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1972).
Smalley, Study
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952).
Sperber
Aramaic text of the Targum to Canticles (Tg. ir harm), cited according to Alexander Sperber (ed.),
The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts, Vol. 4A: The Hagiographa:
Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 127141.
Swete, Introduction
Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge: University Press,
1900).
Tournay, tudes
Raymond Jacques Tournay, Quand Dieu parle aux hommes le langage de lamour. tudes sur le
Cantique des cantiques (CRB 21; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982).
Urbach, Homiletical Interpretations
Ephraim E. Urbach, The Homiletical Interpretations of the Sages and the Expositions of Origen on
Canticles, and the Jewish-Christian Disputation in Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy (eds.), Studies in
Aggadah and Folk-Literature (SH 22; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1971) 247275.

Simon Maurice Simon (tr.), Song of Songs in Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 (ed. H. Freedman and Maurice
Simon; London: Soncino, 1930).
Tg. Targum
Sperber Aramaic text of the Targum to Canticles (Tg. ir harm), cited according to Alexander
Sperber (ed.), The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts, Vol. 4A: The
Hagiographa: Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 127141.
Vajda, Lamour
Georges Vajda, Lamour de Dieu dans la thologie juive du Moyen Age (tudes de Philosophie mdivale
46; Paris: Librairie philosophique [J. Vrin], 1957).
Verbraken
Patricius Verbraken (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Magni (CCSL 144; Tyrnholti: Brepols, 1963) 346
[Expositiones in Canticum canticorum].
Wagner, Aramaismen
Max Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebrisch
(BZAW 96; Berlin: Alfred Tpelmann, 1966).
White, Study
John Bradley White, A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian
Literature (SBLDS 38; Missoula: Scholars, 1978).
Wrthwein
Ernst Wrthwein, Das Hohelied in Ernst Wrthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger, Die fnf Megilloth
(HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1969) 2571.
Editors Note
The English translation of the Song of Songs presented in this volume by Professor Murphy is
new, representing his assessment of the Hebrew Masoretic textual tradition (M) in the light of
other ancient witnesses.
For assistance in editorial revision of the commentary proper, thanks are due to Steven S.
Tuell. The indices for the volume were prepared by John T. Strong.
Who is it whom your soul loves,
for whom you inquire?
Has he no name?
Who are you and who is he?
I speak like this because of the strange
style of speech and extraordinary
disregard for names, quite different from
the (usual) ways of Scripture.
But in this marriage song it is affections,
not words, that are to be considered.
Why is this, except that the holy
love which is the subject of the entire song

cannot be expressed by words or
language, but only in deed and truth.
Here love speaks everywhere!
If anyone desires to grasp these writings,
let him love! For anyone who does
not love, it is vain to listen to this song
of loveor to read it, for a cold heart
cannot catch fire from its eloquence.
The one who does not know Greek cannot
understand Greek, nor can one
ignorant of Latin understand another
speaking Latin, etc. So, too, the language
of love will be meaningless jangle,
like sounding brass or tinkling cymbal,
to anyone who does not love.
Bernard of Clairvaux (Sermon 79.1)
Introduction
1. Authorship, Date, and Canonicity
The Song of Songs is a literal translation of the Hebrew title, r harm,
1
which appears in
the editorial superscription (1:1*) together with an attribution of the work to Solomon. Whoever
contributed the superscription presumably had in mind 1 Kings 5:12 [4:32]* where Solomon is
said to have authored more than a thousand songs as well as some three thousand proverbs. In
the editors view, the Song was thus a superlative work, either the greatest of all songs or the
most sublime of Solomons prosodic compositions. However, this traditional claim of Solomonic
authorship finds little support in the work itself. Solomon is nowhere designated among the
speakers, who are rather anonymous individuals (a woman and a man) and a collective entity
(the Daughters of Jerusalem). No doubt the third-person references to Solomon in the poetry

1
The Hebrew construction, which expresses the superlative, was idiomatically rendered by Luther,
yielding the German title Das Hohelied, The Finest Song (D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische
Gesamtausgabe, Die Deutsche Bibel 10/2 [Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus, 1957] 134135). In the AV
tradition, and so still the RSV, the book bears the title The Song of Solomon. The work is also known in
English as Canticle of Canticles or briefly Canticles, reflecting the Latin tradition (B canticum
canticorum).
*
32
He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five.
1 Kings 4:32 (NRSV)
(1:5*; 3:7*, 9*, 11*; 8:11*, 12*) were a primary reason why the composition came to be
ascribed to him.
The question of authorship is complicated by the issue of the unity of the Song. Is the work a
collection of disparate poems, variously authored over the course of several centuries, or should
the individual units of poetry be attributed to a single author, with perhaps some later additions
contributed by an editor? Our analysis of the Song allows for an oral or even written preexistence
of some parts of the work. However, we have argued for a certain homogeneity of the poems and

*
5
Solomon.
*
7
*
9
*
11
*
11
*
12
structural coherence to the larger composition as it has been received.
2
Although individual
pieces can be distinguished (notably 3:611* and 8:514*) which may suggest multiple
authorship, the whole gives the impression of being a literary unity. To be sure, this unity may be
contrived, reflecting the efforts of a later redactor or editor who is perhaps also responsible for
the superscription in 1:1*. But there is equal merit to the view that the poet who authored most if
not all of the individual love poems preserved in the Song also designed the composition as a
whole. While no certainty can be reached in such matters of authorship, the collection of poems
within the Song is not haphazard. The individual poems themselves attest a world of imagery, a
literary style and form, and a pathos that point in the direction of a unified composition rather
than a mere anthology.
The date of the composition, as a whole or in its various parts, is equally problematic. The
judgment of Pope is admirable for its clarity and conciseness: The dating game as played with
biblical books like Job and the Song of Songs, as well as with many of the Psalms, remains
imprecise and the score is difficult to compute. There are grounds for both the oldest and the
youngest estimates.
3
This apparent critical impasse exists because of conflicting and uncertain
positions taken on three fundamental issues: the connection of the work with Solomon or his
period; the import of certain geographical references within the Song; and assessment of the
Songs linguistic profile. Here we will do no more than illustrate the types of argument which
have been offered in these three areas.
4

a) Obviously, if one accepts the tradition that Solomon authored the Song, the work must be
dated to the mid-tenth century B.C.E. As we have noted, however, this attribution is not sustained
by the poetry itself. A rather abstract argument for the Songs composition in the Solomonic era
(though not by Solomon himself) has been advanced by Gerleman.
5
He considers the style in
which the Song depicts love and portrays the lovers to reflect a relatively early rather than later
period in Israels cultural history. He suggests specifically the appropriateness of associating the
Songs literary themes and spirit with the period of Solomonic humanism (or the supposed
Solomonic Enlightenment to which von Rad refers)
6
when Israelite culture pursued an interest
in human beauty, under the influence of Egyptian art and literature. Although there are indeed

2
See below, pp. 6267.
Pope Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7c;
Garden City: Doubleday, 1977).
3
Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7c; Garden
City: Doubleday, 1977) 27.
4
Pope (2224) offers a relatively detailed review of scholarly positions and arguments regarding the
date of the Song.
Gerleman Gillis Gerleman, Ruth, Das Hohelied (BKAT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1965).
5
Gillis Gerleman, Ruth. Das Hohelied (BKAT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1965) 6377.
6
Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1: The Theology of Israels Historical Traditions (tr. D.
M. G. Stalker; New York: Harper and Row, 1962) 55, 425432.
striking similarities of style and literary topoi between the Song and Egyptian love lyrics,
7

decisive evidence for Gerlemans view is lacking. One may as easily posit a Persian period date,
when pertinent cultural traditions were both reviewed and widely diffused throughout the ancient
Near East.
b) The reference to Tirzah in 6:4* can serve as an example of the argumentation based upon
geographical data. It has been suggested that the Song must have been composed during the era
of Tirzahs prominence as the capital of the Northern Kingdom, and therefore before the building
of Samaria by Omri in the first half of the ninth century B.C.E. (cf. 1 Kgs 14:17*; 16:2324*).
8

This and similar arguments can be neutralized if they are seen as limited to the possible dating of
particular verses or poems within the Song. Moreover, such claims are in themselves
inconclusive, since none of the geographical references in the Song betrays an interest in
concrete political history; other associations may account for the places mentioned. In the
particular case of Tirzah, the word may well have been chosen for the poets simile because of its
sound and semantic connotation (i.e., rh = be pleasing).
c) Philological arguments for the Songs date of composition bristle with difficulties. On the one
hand, certain lexical, grammatical, and literary parallels between the Song and Ugaritic texts

7
*
4
*
17
Then Jeroboams wife got up and went away, and she came to Tirzah. As she came to the threshold of
the house, the child died.
1 Kings 14:17 (NRSV)
*
23
In the thirty-first year of King Asa of Judah, Omri began to reign over Israel; he reigned for twelve
years, six of them in Tirzah.
24
He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver; he fortified the hill, and called the
city that he built, Samaria, after the name of Shemer, the owner of the hill.
8
Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary
(New York: Ktav,
2
1974) 23.
have been adduced.
9
These might suggest an early, at least preexilic dating of the Song. On the
other hand, composition in the postexilic period is suggested by the substantial number of
alleged Aramaisms in the Song as well as by cases of what appear to be late foreign loan words:
most notably Persian pards in 4:13*, and appiryn in 3:9* (possibly reflecting Greek
phoreion).
10
Although the present state of scholarly discussion renders these arguments
uncertain, most critical commentators do favor a postexilic date for the Songs composition.
Related to the issue of language is the question of the songs cultural provenance. Does the
work represent folk poetry (Volksdichtung) or is it a sophisticated, elitist artistic composition
(Kunstdichtung)? Those who favor associating the work with popular culture posit its origins in
concrete social settings, such as ancient Israelite celebrations of betrothal and marriage. Those
who view the Song as a refined literary creation attribute its composition and transmission to the
educated elite of ancient Israel.
11
Again, such arguments are unconvincing. It is evident that love
poetry in particular is at home in all strata of society, and at all times. There is, in any event, no
compelling way of discriminating between what was popular and what was deemed courtly or
cultivated in ancient Israel. It is noteworthy that the question of cultural provenance reflects
the division of scholarly opinion regarding folk wisdom and school wisdom. Here, too, a

9
See William Foxwell Albright, Archaic Survivals in the Text of Canticles, Hebrew and Semitic Studies
Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver (ed. D. W. Thomas and W. D. McHardy; Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 17;
and, most recently, Pope (720721, 742743) who provides a list of Ugaritic references.
*
13
10
See especially the nuanced expression of this position offered by Raymond Tournay in the
commentary of Andr Robert, Le Cantique des Cantiques (tB; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1963) 21: Although it is
always delicate to handle, the linguistic criterion orientates us also to the Persian period. He then lists
the lexical items usually supposed to be Persian loan-words, such as pards (paradise) in 4:13* and
karkm (saffron) in 4:14*, and claims that there are as well at least seventeen Aramaic terms used in
the song: zp, nr (1:6*); lmh (1:7*); rwzym (1:11*); brwt (1:17*); ktl, rkym (2:9*); stw (2:11*);
pgh (2:13*); wq (3:2*); z (3:8*); np (5:3*); bb (6:11*); mzg, swg (7:3*[2*]); rpg (8:5*); and probably
also Iph (4:4*). Cf. Max Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im
alttestamentlichen Hebrisch (BZAW 96; Berlin: Alfred Tpelmann, 1966); and Avi Hurwitz, The
Chronological Significance of Aramaisms in Biblical Hebrew, IEJ 18 (1968) 324340, who lays out
prudent conditions concerning the use of Aramaisms as a criterion of lateness in dating Hebrew
literature. He allows the possibility that the Song was written in a northern dialect which shared with
Aramaic a significant number of linguistic features unattested in the standard Biblical Hebrew of the
classical Jerusalem dialect.
11
For example, Gerleman (7172) considers parallels with Egyptian poetry to support an upper-class
provenance for the work.
doubtful distinction is sometimes drawn between the cultural lore generated and nurtured within
the Israelite family or the general populace and the higher wisdom supposedly cultivated in
courtly circles.
12

In short, very little can be said with confidence about the authorship and date or social
provenance of the Song. We are on only slightly firmer ground when we consider issues relating
to the Songs acceptance into the canon of scripture.
The factors leading to the canonization of the Song remain obscure. Despite this, there has
been no lack of assumptions regarding how the Song achieved canonical statusfor example, as
a result of its supposed Solomonic authorship, its cultic significance, or an alleged allegorical
interpretation of it.
13
Whatever the precise reasons and process, the fact of canonization is firmly
supported by both ancient Jewish and Christian traditions.
There is no reason to think that Ben Sira (c. 175 B.C.E.) is referring specifically to the Song in
his encomium of Solomon (Sir 47:1517*). The remarks of Josephus (c. 100 C.E.) on the twenty-
two justly accredited books of Jewish scripture are unfortunately vague as regards the Song.
14

His classification includes four books which contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct
of human life; these are probably the psalter and the three wisdom books attributed to Solomon
(Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs). The first certain comments on the Songs
canonicity in Jewish tradition appear in the Mishnah and reflect some continuing debate among

12
See the discussion in Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes,
and Esther (FOTL 13; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1981) 69, on the setting of wisdom literature.
13
E.g., Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (tr. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York: Harper and
Row, 1965) 485: The fact that the Song of Songs was taken into the canon, and its use as festal scroll at
Passover , are due probably to the allegorical interpretation of its chief characters. Cf. Max L.
Margolis, How the Song of Songs Entered the Canon, The Song of Songs: A Symposium (ed. Wilfred H.
Schoff; Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 917; Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Hohe Lied im
Kanon, ZAW 59 (194243) 189199; Aage Bentzen, Remarks on the Canonization of the Song of
Solomon, Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen (Hauniae: Einar Munksgaard, 1953) 4147; and Andr
Lacocque, Linsertion du Cantique des Cantiques dans le Canon, RHPR 42 (1962) 3844. See also
Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 1011.
*
15
Your influence spread throughout the earth, and you filled it with proverbs having deep meaning.
16
Your fame reached to far-off islands, and you were loved for your peaceful reign.
17
Your songs, proverbs, and parables, and the answers you gave astounded the nations.
Sirach 47:1517 (NRSV)
14
Contra Apionen 1.8 (Henry St. John Thackeray, tr., Josephus, Vol. 1 [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard
University; London: William Heinemann, 1926] 178179).
first-century sages regarding the full scriptural status of this book as well as Ecclesiastes.
15
Here
the majority of rabbinic opinion declares both works to defile the hands; i.e., they are deemed
canonical. Particular weight is given to the judgment of Rabbi Aqiba (d. 135 C.E.) who opposes
the view attributed to Rabbi Yose that the authority of the Song was disputed. Aqiba is
purported to have said. God forbid!no man in Israel ever disputed about the Song of Songs
[that he should say] that it does not render the hands unclean, for all the ages are not worth 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.
16
Although it is not possible to determine how and exactly when
the book entered the Jewish canon, it is reasonable to suppose that its position was secured by
100 C.E.
According to the Jewish division of the Bible, the Song belongs to the third section, the
ktbm or Writings.
17
Later rabbinic tradition further classified the Song as the first of five
mgillt, the Scrolls which were read during the great feasts of the Jewish liturgical year.
18

Association of the Song with the celebration of Passover accounts for its initial position in the
collection.
19

15
See m. Yadayim 3.5; m. Eduyyot 5.3. Cf. t. Yadayim 2.14; b. Megillah 7a; and also Cant. Rab. 1:1.10
(Maurice Simon, tr., Song of Songs in Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 [ed. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon;
London: Soncino, 1939] 1819). For discussion of the relevant data, see Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization
of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences 47; Hamden: Archon, 1976) 120126, 132.
16
Herbert Danby, tr., The Mishnah (London: Oxford University, 1933) 782. With this may be compared
the remark attributed to Aqiba in midrash Aggdat r harm: Had not the Torah been given,
Canticles would have sufficed to guide the world (Ephraim E. Urbach, The Homiletical Interpretations
of the Sages and the Expositions of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish-Christian Disputation, Studies in
Aggadah and Folk-Literature [SH 22; Ed. Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew
University, 1971+ 250). Elsewhere Aqiba is reported to have excluded from the world to come anyone
who would recite or sing the Song in a profane way in a banquet house (t. Sanhedrin 12.10).
17
In b. Baba Batra 14b15a, the order of books in the Ketubim is given as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The Song is
thus grouped with the other two books (Proverbs and Ecclesiastes) traditionally ascribed to Solomon,
though a subsequent comment in the section attributes the writing (redaction, collection,
transmission?) of these works as well as the book of Isaiah to Hezekiah and his colleagues (I. Epstein,
tr., The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nezikin 3/Baba Bathra 1 [London: Soncino, 1935] 71). Cf. also the
rabbinic discussion on the order of Solomonic composition of the three books attributed to him, in Cant.
Rab. 1:1.10 (Simon, 17).
18
Cf. Ludwig Blau, Megillot, The Five, JE 8, 429431; and Ismar Elbogen, Der jdische Gottesdienst in
seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965 [= Frankfurt,
4
1931]) 184186.
19
Rabbinic interpretation found allusion to the exodus from Egypt especially in the reference of 1:9* to
Pharaohs chariots. See the Targum to this verse (Pope, 342, provides an English translation) and also
Cant. Rab. 1:9.46 (Simon, 6872). Connection of the Song with the Passover season was also suggested
In specifically Christian tradition, the Song is first mentioned in the so-called Bryennios list
of canonical works, which has been dated to the end of the first century C.E.
20
Here, as well as in
the somewhat later lists of Melito and others, the books attributed to Solomon are listed in the
order Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.
21

2. Hebrew Text and Traditional Versions
To the extent that it can be accurately reconstructed from available data, the textual history of the
Song poses few difficulties. Major witnesses exhibit a narrow range of significant variants, most
of which are attributable to differences in interpreting a Hebrew text closely resembling the
consonantal base preserved in the medieval Masoretic version (M). While the non-Hebrew
versions shed welcome light on semantic and syntactical issues, they provide only minimal help
in repairing damage which the Song may have suffered in transmission prior to the consolidation
of the text-form underlying M. In short, the extant evidence preserves little if any trace to suggest
that more than a single Hebrew recension or edition of the Song ever existed.
The Hebrew text of the Song in M
22
appears to be in good repair, relative especially to the
condition of the traditional Hebrew text of Job or even Proverbs. The only verse in the Song
which seems to defy cogent decipherment is 6:12, where the problems are attested in M and the
other versions alike. Occasionally departures from the vocalizations and strict versification of M
yield preferable sense, sometimes with versional support.
23
Only rarely does conjectural
emendation of the Hebrew consonantal text seem either necessary or useful.
24
Rather than
possible errors in transmission, it is the large number of hapax legomena and other words of

by the references to spring in 2:113* and 7:12*[11*] (see the comments of Tournay, and the literature
cited, in Robert, 429). Additional but less obvious associations between exodus-passover events and
imagery of the Song are suggested already in the tannaitic midrash Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael: e.g., Pisha
7.8386; 13.147149; 14.2327; Beshallah 3.8994; Shirata 1.136139; 6.99; 10.4 (references are to the
edition of Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, 3 Vols. [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1933]).
20
See Jean-Paul Audet, A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books of the Old Testament in Greek Transcription,
JTS N.S. 1 (1950) 135154, especially 149. See also Jean-Paul Audet, Le sens du Cantique des cantiques,
RB 62 (1955) 202 n.2.
21
The canonical enumeration of Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the later second century, is preserved in
Eusebius Ecclesiastical History, 4.26.1214. For additional data on the position of the Song in Jewish and
Christian canonical traditions, see Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek
(Cambridge: University Press, 1900) 198214, 228.
22
Unless specific note to the contrary is made, readings and citations of M are based on Codex
Leningradensis (early eleventh century) as published in the standard edition of BHS.
23
See, e.g., the Notes to the translation on 3:11* (incorporation of [m]bnwt yrlym from the end of the
preceding verse) and 5:13* (mgaddlt for migdlt). In 7:10*[9*] M ipt ynm (lips of
sleepers?) makes little sense; G, V, and E support a reading ptay winny (my lips and my teeth).
24
See the Notes to 5:12 (conjectural restoration of innw *his teeth+).
uncertain meaning in the M version which challenges the modern critic; here, as already
suggested, the readings of the ancient non-Hebrew versions can provide valuable assistance.
The Song is attested, but only minimally so, among the fragmentary Hebrew manuscripts
recovered since 1947 from sites in the Judaean wilderness. Four Hebrew exemplars of the Song
are included in Skehans count of the Qumran biblical finds.
25
Three of these belong to the small
fragments of scrolls recovered from Qumran Cave 4 and are as yet unpublished.
26
The fourth
exemplar, from Qumran Cave 6 (6QCant), consists of a single scrap from a narrow parchment
scroll which has been dated paleographically to the later Herodian period (mid-first century C.E.);
the initial two columns of the Song are partially preserved, exhibiting portions of 1:17*.
27
The
text offers no real surprises. In orthographic detail it represents the tradition promulgated in M.
Several legible readings are in minor disagreement with M and one of these, which provides the
Hebrew construction apparently underlying a Vulgate rendering, merits critical attention.
28
In
sum, 6QCant seems to be a close congener of the transmission which eventuated in M.

25
Patrick W. Skehan, Littrature de Qumran.A. Textes bibliques, DBSup 9/51, 806.
26
Cf. Frank M. Cross, Jr., Le Travail ddition des Fragments manuscrits de Qumrn, RB 63 (1956) 57.
6QCant Canticles scroll from Qumran Cave 6
*
1
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
27
Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les Petites Grottes de Qumrn: Exploration de la
falaise. Les grottes 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 6Q, 7Q, 10Q, Vol. 1: Textes (DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962) 112114;
Vol. 2: Planches, pl. 23/6.
28
See Notes to 1:3 (mnym wbym for M mnk bm).
A contemporary, full-scale critical edition of Septuagintal and other early Greek witnesses to
the Song is unfortunately not yet available. In the meantime, the manual edition of Rahlfs,
29

supplemented with the hexaplaric data compiled by Field,
30
provides serviceable access to the
Old Greek evidence, but it does not enable us to speak with much confidence about possible
prehexaplaric recensional complexities in the Greek transmission.
31
Caution is thus necessary
with regard to Barthlemys suggestion that the version of the Song preserved in the traditional
Septuagint (G) is a first-century C.E. revision, bringing an Old Greek translation into closer
agreement with a (late) Palestinian Hebrew text-tradition considered authoritative in Pharisaic
circles.
32
At all events, the Septuagintal text of the Song presented in Rahlfs preliminary
reconstruction presupposes a Hebrew original closely affiliated with but not identical to the
consonantal base of M.
33
The G text, for example, exhibits some harmonistic and expansionistic

29
Alfred Rahlfs, ed., Septuaginta. Id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX interpretes, Vol. 2: Libri
poetici et prophetici (Stuttgart: Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935 [and subsequent reprint editions]).
For the Song, as generally elsewhere, Rahlfs eclectic text of G is based primarily on collation and critical
evaluation of readings in the three major fourth-fifth century uncial manuscripts Vaticanus (G
B
),
Sinaiticus (G
S
) and Alexandrinus (G
A
). Still useful is the Shorter Cambridge Septuagint (Henry Barclay
Swete, ed., The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, Vol. 2: I Chronicles-Tobit
[Cambridge: University Press,
2
1896]: the G text of the Song is represented by Vaticanus while the
apparatus lists variants attested in Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus
Parisiensis (= G
C
, a fifth-century uncial, only partially intact).
30
Fridericus Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt sive veterum interpretum Graecorum in totum
Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta, Vol. 2: JobusMalachias (Hildesheim: George Olms. 1964 [= Oxford,
1875]) 407424.
31
On recensional developments in the early history of the Greek transmission, see the following survey
of the recent and extensive critical discussion: Kevin G. OConnell, Greek Versions (Minor), IDBSup,
377381 (with bibliography).
32
Dominique Barthlemy, Les Devanciers dAquila (VTSup 10; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963), especially 3334,
49, 67. Although the presence or influence of a putative Kaige Recension in other parts of the Greek
Old Testament need not be challenged, the lexical criteria for recognizing it, initially proposed by
Barthlemy and subsequently enlarged by other scholars, are not sufficiently attested in the Song to
make the identification convincing. Thus in the Hebrew text of the Song, the particle gam appears only
twice, represented in G once by pros (7:14*[13*]) and once by kaige (8:1*). We have, in any case, no
clear evidence that the Old Testament Hagiographa, in whole or major part, circulated in Greek
translation before Herodian times; certain features supposed to be Theodotionic or proto-
Theodotionic may indeed have been employed in the earliest Greek translations of some biblical books.
33
See the analysis of Gerleman (7781) who characterizes G as exhibiting almost slavish fidelity to a
Hebrew Vorlage which is very close to the Massoretic Text (77).
readings
34
which may already have been present in its Hebrew Vorlage.
35
Not infrequently, G and
M offer differing interpretations of the same consonantal base. In 1:2*, for example, Hebrew
ddyk is rendered in G as mastoi sou (your breasts), which presumes a vocalization daddk
or the like, rather than M, ddk (your love).
36
Similarly, in 4:8* G deuro (cf. B veni)
construes Hebrew ty (= M itt [with me]) as a Qal feminine singular imperative of the root th
(= t [come hither]). An interesting mistranslation which occurs several times in G (4:1*, 3*;

34
E.g., the initial colon of 1:3* in G is harmonized with the similar but simpler expression in 4:10*; the
final colon in the G text of 3:1* is apparently an addition, taken from 5:6*. Cf. also in G 5:8* with 2:7*,
and 8:2* with 3:4*.
35
A tendency toward harmonization and expansion, based especially on parallel passages, is
characteristic of the Hebrew textual tradition (now well attested in Qumran manuscripts as well as the
Samaritan Pentateuch) which Cross has identified as Palestinian. He notes further that books of the
Writings among the Qumran scrolls witness to a text-type which may be considered both proto-
Masoretic and Palestinian (Frank M. Cross, The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts, Qumran and
the History of the Biblical Text [ed. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon; Cambridge: Harvard,
1975] 308). This may aptly describe not only 6QCant but also the Hebrew texts of the Song underlying
both G and E.
*
2
36
G exhibits the same interpretation of Hebrew ddyk / ddy in 1:4*; 4:10* (bis); and 7:13*[12*]. In all
these instances, G is followed hy B: ubera / um (1:2*, 4*; 4:10b*; 7:13*[12*]) and mammae (4:10a*). E
distinguishes contextually between references to love (1:2*, 4*; 4:10b*) and to the womans breasts
(4:10a*; 7:13*[12*]).
*
8
B Vulgate version
*
1
6:7*) is the rendering of consonantal mtk as sipses sou (your silence), apparently
deriving the rare Hebrew term from the root mt; the M reading ammtk (your veil) has
mm as its ostensible root.
37
Such philological disagreements, even when M offers the more
plausible or clearly superior interpretation, should not obscure the fact that the G translation of
the Song attempted to represent scrupulously the Hebrew Vorlage. Indeed, the results are
sometimes faithful to a fault, sacrificing Greek idiom in favor of a woodenly literal approach to
the Hebrew. Thus at the beginning of 3:4*, the rendering hs mikron hoti parlthon makes
scant sense in Greek, except as a mechanical approximation of the Hebrew construction (km
brty). The same awkward literalness, though differently manifest, best accounts for the
translation of Hebrew rmnh (= M r mn [Mt. Amana]) as archs pistes (= r
mn [top of faith]) in 4:8*. There is no reason, in any case, to take this rendering as
evidence that the translator was familiar with an allegorical interpretation of the Song.
Brief note should be taken of a secondary feature which makes its appearance already in
some of the older G uncials. Specifically, in both Alexandrinus and Sinaiticus rubrics have been
introduced into the Song to interpret the supposed dialogue or dramatic action.
38
G
A
supplies
simple designations, identifying the speaking parts of h nymph (the bride) and ho
nymphios (the bridegroom). The notations in G
S
are considerably more elaborate, for example,

*
3
*
7
37
Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible the feminine noun appears only in Is 47:2*, where G translates
correctly: katakalymma (veil). B in each case gives an abstract rendering of the noun but apparently
presupposes the M derivation from mm, with a meaning to hide or the like.
*
4
38
The pertinent data are given in an addendum to Rahlfs edition of the Song. Cf. also Swete,
Introduction, 360.
G Codex Alexandrinus
assigning words to the maidens and typically identifying those being addressed as well as the
speakers. There is no doubt that this type of scribal elaboration reflects unusual Christian interest
in the interpretation of the Song, stimulated especially by Origens influential commentary.
39

The Old Syriac translation of the song, preserved in the so-called Peshita version (E),
40
is
also a literal rendering but a more fluent one than exhibited in G. Most of the expansions found in
G are lacking in E (but see 8:12*), indicating that its Hebrew Vorlage was even more closely
related than the parent text of G to the line of transmission which eventuated in M.
41
It is not
unusual, however, for E to join G and sometimes B in an interpretation of the consonantal Hebrew
text, against the vocalization of M. Thus in 4:8* E also understands ty to be a feminine singular
imperative and renders ddyk in 4:10a* as your breasts.
42
Such instances may suggest direct or
indirect influence of G on the Peshita version of the Song, but it is easier to explain them as
common reflection of early Jewish interpretive tradition. Certainly there are enough cases where
each translation of the Song goes its own way to discount wholesale dependence of E on G.
43
One
curious example of this appears in 4:11*: consonantal klh (= M kall [bride] is rendered
correctly in G as nymph but is represented in E by kul (all).

G Codex Sinaiticus
39
E Syriac Peshita version
40
A critical edition, prepared by John A. Emerton and D. J. Lane, has appeared in the Leiden Peshita:
The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshita Version, Vol. II/5 (Leiden. E. J. Brill, 1979).
41
For a detailed study of the E version of the Song, see Joshua Bloch, A Critical Examination of the Text
of the Syriac Version of the Song of Songs, AJSL 38 (192122) 103139. Cf. also Sebastian Euringer, Die
Bedeutung der Peschitto fr die Textkritik des Hohenliedes, Biblische Studien, Vol. 6 (ed. O.
Bardenhewer; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1901) 115128.
*
10
42
See above, n. 35.
43
See the discussion in Gerleman, 8283.
*
11
Illustrations included in the preceding remarks are sufficient to indicate that the Song in its
Latin Vulgate version (B)
44
occasionally presupposes Hebrew consonantal readings and
philological interpretations which differ with the vocalized text of M. These differences are
relatively few and of minor consequence for criticism of the Hebrew text itself. In the case of the
Song, as generally elsewhere, the chief text-critical significance of B is the witness it provides to
consolidation by the fourth century of the proto-Masoretic Hebrew transmission. It may be
added that the B version of the Song well attests to Jeromes impressive skills as a translator.
Only passing note need be taken here of other ancient and medieval versions. The extant
Aramaic Targum to the Song
45
is less an expansive translation of the Hebrew text than an
extended homiletical midrash. It gives important testimony to the crystallization in the earlier
Middle Ages of Jewish allegorical interpretation of the Song.
46
The Old Latin (L) and other
daughter versions of G have little independent text-critical significance, though they are, of
course, valuable as witnesses to the broader history of the Songs transmission and
interpretation.
47

3. History of Interpretation
Over the course of the centuries study of the Song of Songs has generated an enormous quantity
of expository literature, and yet the exegetical history so attested would appear at first sight to be
a rather cut and dried affair. It is well known that the dominant traditions of interpretation, in
Judaism and Christianity alike, have understood the Song to portray the relationship between
God and the people of Godmore specifically, the bond of mutual love between Israel and her
divine Lord in Jewish exegesis or between the Church as bride and Christ as the bridegroom in
Christian exposition. Except for the departures of a few individual interpreters, these basic views
of the book held sway from late antiquity until relatively modern times and they continue even
today to find some support.
There are available detailed surveys of this history of interpretation, many of them treating
expositors in chronological sequence with comments on items of particular interest.
48
Rather

44
Robert Weber, ed., Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatum Versionem, Vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Wrttembergische
Bibelanstalt, 1969) 9971002.
45
Alexander Sperber, ed., The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts, Vol. 4A: The
Hagiographa: Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 127141. Cf. also Raphael
Hai Melamed, The Targum to Canticles according to Six Yemen MSS. Compared with the Textus
Receptus (Ed. de Lagarde), JQR N.S. 10 (191920) 377410; N.S. 11 (192021) 120; N.S. 12 (192122)
57117.
46
L Old Latin version
47
For pertinent bibliographical information, see especially Pope, 233236, and Robert, 2930.
48
Helpful overviews of the history of the Songs interpretation can be found in a number of
commentaries, especially the following: Christian David Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth (LBS;
New York: Ktav, 1970 [= London, 1857 and 1861]) 20126; Gerleman, 4351; Pope, 89229. The
following surveys may also be noted: Isak Brot, De Allegorische Uitlegging van het Hooglied
than plowing the same ground here, it seems preferable to offer a representative sounding in
major periods of the Songs exegetical history, in order to help the reader to grasp the broad
shape of this history as well as to become acquainted with some of the most outstanding
interpreters.
49
Particular attention will be given to the hermeneutical principles operative in the
development of Jewish and Christian exposition. Whether these principles are true or false from
a modern perspective is not the primary issue. If such judgments are to be made, they should be
preceded by an effort to understand the why and the how of our exegetical forebears. Moreover,
the course of this history underscores an important lesson: the effect of theological
presuppositions and cultural assumptions on the work of every interpreter, even a contemporary
one who may take pride in a strictly literal and historical-critical approach.
A selective review of the expository literature frees us from attending to all the vagaries
which have led some writers to label the Songs history of interpretation a collection of
curiosities (Rarittenkabinett) or even a tale of woe (Leidensgeschichte).
50
It bears repeating
that only when we understand the social and intellectual provenances of earlier commentators
can we perhaps extend a sympathetic ear to their expositions. When one realizes, for example,
that most of the Christian exegesis on the Song until the Reformation was produced by clerics
and monks, it becomes understandable that a mystical interpretation thrived. This social reality in
combination with an entrenched hermeneutical positionthat the Old Testament must have a
specifically Christian meaning and that the scriptural word of God should deal directly with the
religious aspirations of the individual believer and the community of faithmade the spiritual
interpretation of the Song in patristic and medieval Christian exposition virtually inevitable.
A. Early Jewish Interpretations of the Song and the Emergence of Christian Allegorical
Expostion

voornamelijk in Nederland (Zuijderduijn-Woerden, 1971); Curt Kuhl, Das Hohelied und seine Deutung,
TRu 9 (1937) 137167; David Lerch, Zur Geschichte der Auslegung des Hohenliedes, ZKT 54 (1957)
257277; Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 111;
Frankfurt am Main Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe 1; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1958); Harold H.
Rowley, The Interpretation of the Song of Songs, The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays (Oxford:
Blackwell,
2
1965) 195245; Alberto Vaccari, Il Cantico dei Cantici nelle recenti publicazioni, Bib 9
(1938) 433457; Ernst Wrthwein, Zum Verstndnis des Hohenliedes, TRu 32 (1967) 177212.
49
Portions of the following review were previously published: Roland E. Murphy, Patristic and Medieval
ExegesisHelp or Hindrance? CBQ 43 (1981) 505516.
50
So, respectively, David Lerch, Hoheslied, II. Auslegungsgeschichtlich, RGG
3
3, 431, and Samuel Oettli,
Das Hohelied, Die Poetischen Hagiographen (KK A/7; Nordlingen: C. H. Beck, 1889) 167. For the
Christian reader, such pejorative assessments can be amply justified by examining the work of Richard
Frederick Littledale, A Commentary on the Song of Songs From Ancient and Medieval Sources (London:
1869). Despite this compilers good intentions, his florilegium of sources is rather bewildering, if not
defeating, for the modern student of the Song.
The earliest stages in the interpretation of the Song are far from certain. The relative poverty of
our knowledge in this regard needs to be emphasized, if only to counter the common assumption
that the history of interpretation begins with a firm Jewish tradition of allegorical or
spiritualizing exposition, in which the Song was understood to celebrate the love between God
and Israel, and that this tradition was simply taken over with slight adaptation by the early
church.
51

The fact is, however, that we know very little about early Jewish readings of the Song, apart
from the quite literal renderings of it preserved in the Greek and Syriac translations. Neither do
we have reliable evidence to establish when and why the book was originally included in the
corpus of Jewish scripture. Solomonic authorship, claimed for the book in its superscription, is
often alleged to explain the Songs canonical status. Attribution to Solomon of this work,
Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes no doubt bears witness to the notion that Solomon was the chief
patron of biblical wisdom. Audet has underscored this point and suggested that it indicates an
early sapiential interpretation in which the contents of the Song were understood to portray the
bond of love between man and woman.
52
What may have been a literal or even bawdy
interpretation of the Song, as well as profane usage, was apparently condemned by Rabbi Aqiba
(c. 100 C.E.).
53
Aqibas personal testimony to the Songs superlative sanctity is elsewhere cited
in rabbinic sources to dispel any continuing doubt regarding the canonical authority of the

51
Cf. Wilhem Riedel, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen
Kirche (Leipzig: Deichert, 1898); and also the summary remarks of Robert, 45; Rowley, Interpretation,
202; Ohly, Studien, 13; and Gordis, 23. Audet (Le sens, 199200) rightly calls this widely held
assumption into question. It should be emphasized that the issue here is interpretation of the Song in
particular, not the wider impact of Jewish exegetical theory and practice on early Christian exposition of
scripture. For discussion of the latter, with appropriate attention especially to the influence of Philo on
the development of patristic allegorical methodology, the following surveys may be consulted: R. P. C.
Hanson, Biblical Exegesis in the Early Church, CHB 1, 412453; R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event: A
Study of the Sources and Significance of Origens Interpretation of Scripture (London: SCM Richmond:
John Knox, 1959) 97129; Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1952) 136; and especially Henry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers:
Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge: Harvard University,
3
1970) 2472.
52
Audet, Le sens, 202203 and 216217; see further below, pp. 9899.
53
The remark is preserved in t. Sanhedrin 12.10: Rabbi Aqiba says, Whoever sings the Song of Songs
with tremulous voice in a banquet hall and (so) treats it as a sort of ditty [dmn zemer] has no share in
the world to come (cf. b. Sanhedrin 101a, where a similar rebuke is cited anonymously). Possibly
relevant here also is the dictum attributed to Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel in m. Taanit 4.8, which seems
to connect Cant 3:11* with festivities during the season of grape harvest (even though the present
mishnaic context interprets the day of his marriage as the law-giving at Sinai and the day of the joy of
his heart with the completion of the Solomonic temple). Cf. Urbach, Homiletical Interpretations, 247
248; and Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1985) 252.
work.
54
Although his specific views on the overall meaning of the Song simply cannot be
determined, it seems likely that he favored a symbolic rather than a literal interpretation.
55

Historical control is lacking for other data cited by critics to support the antiquity of Jewish
allegorization of the Song. The metaphorical references to Israel as lily, dove, and bride in
2 Esdras 5:2436* and 7:26* may directly reflect language of the Song.
56
Even so, this neither

54
See above, p. 6 nn. 15 and 16.
55

The most substantive but still cryptic remarks on the Song attributed to Aqiba are cited in the Mekilta
de Rabbi Ishmael, Shirata 3.4963 (commenting on Ex 15:2*): Rabbi Akiba says: Before all the Nations
of the World I shall hold forth on the beauties and splendor of Him Who Spake and the World Came to
Be! For, lo, the Nations of the World keep asking Israel, What is thy Beloved more than another
beloved, that thou dost so adjure us (Cant. 5:9*), that for His sake you die, for His sake you let
yourselves be slain, as it is said, Therefore do the maidens (lmwt) love Thee (Cant. 1:3*)they love
Thee to the point of death (d mwt)!and it is written, Nay, but for Thy sake are we killed etc. (Ps.
44:23*). Look you! Youre attractive, look you! youre brave. Come merge with us!
But Israel reply to the Nations of the World: Have you any notion of Him? Let us tell you a little bit of
His Glory: My beloved is white and ruddy etc. (Cant. 5:10ff*.).
And when the Nations of the World hear but a little bit of the Glory of Him Who Spake and the
World Came to Be, they say to Israel, Let us go along with you, as it is said, Whither is thy Beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women? Whither hath thy Beloved turned Him, that we may seek Him with thee
(Cant. 6:1*)?
But Israel reply to the Nations of the World: You have no part of Him; on the contrary, My beloved
is mine, and I am His (Cant. 2:16*), I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine etc. (Cant. 6:3*) (tr.
Judah Goldin, The Song at the Sea, being a Commentary on a Commentary in Two Parts [New Haven and
London: Yale University, 1971] 115117 [cf. Lauterbach, Mekilta 2, 2627]. Similar remarks are cited
anonymously in Cant. Rab. 5:9.1 (Simon, 238) and midrash Sipre Deut. 343 (Louis Finkelstein, ed., Siphre
ad Deuteronomium [Corpus Tannaiticum 3/3; Berlin: Jdischer Kulturbund in Deutschland, 1939] 399; cf.
Hans Bietenhard, tr., Sifre Deuteronomium: bersetzt und erklrt [Judaica et Christiana 8; Bern: Peter
Lang, 1984] 833834).
*
24
and from all the lands of the world you have chosen for yourself one region, and from all the flowers
of the world you have chosen for yourself one lily,
25
and from all the depths of the sea you have filled for yourself one river, and from all the cities that
have been built you have consecrated Zion for yourself,
suffices to establish a first-century exegetical tradition among the Jews nor sheds significant

26
and from all the birds that have been created you have named for yourself one dove, and from all the
flocks that have been made you have provided for yourself one sheep,
27
and from all the multitude of peoples you have gotten for yourself one people; and to this people,
whom you have loved, you have given the law that is approved by all.
28
And now, O Lord, why have you handed the one over to the many, and dishonored the one root
beyond the others, and scattered your only one among the many?
29
And those who opposed your promises have trampled on those who believed your covenants.
30
If you really hate your people, they should be punished at your own hands.
31
When I had spoken these words, the angel who had come to me on a previous night was sent to me.
32
He said to me, Listen to me, and I will instruct you; pay attention to me, and I will tell you more.
33
Then I said, Speak, my lord. And he said to me, Are you greatly disturbed in mind over Israel? Or do
you love him more than his Maker does?
34
I said, No, my lord, but because of my grief I have spoken; for every hour I suffer agonies of heart,
while I strive to understand the way of the Most High and to search out some part of his judgment.
35
He said to me, You cannot. And I said, Why not, my lord? Why then was I born? Or why did not my
mothers womb become my grave, so that I would not see the travail of Jacob and the exhaustion of the
people of Israel?
36
He said to me, Count up for me those who have not yet come, and gather for me the scattered
raindrops, and make the withered flowers bloom again for me;
2 Esdras 5:2436 (NRSV)
*
26
For indeed the time will come, when the signs that I have foretold to you will come to pass, that the
city that now is not seen shall appear, and the land that now is hidden shall be disclosed.
56
It should be noted, though, that the same metaphors are more explicitly connected with Israel in the
prophecy of Hosea: lily (n) Hos 14:6[5]*: dove (yn) Hos 7:11* and 11:11*; bride (kall) Hos
4:1314* (and also Jer 2:32*, etc.). Cf. Andr M. Dubarle, La femme couronne dtoiles (Ap., 12),
Mlanges Bibliques rdigs en l honneur de Andr Robert; (Travaux de lInstitut Catholique de Paris 4;
Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1957) 518 n. 2.
light on motives for the Songs canonization.
57
While the Targum and the Midrash Rabbah to the
Song amply attest Jewish symbolical exposition, these sources in their received forms date only
to the Middle Ages, even if some elements in them may plausibly be associated with second-
century circumstances.
58
In short, the classical Jewish interpretation of the Song came to be
allegorical, but we are unable to trace the roots of this interpretation with any certainty or even
to be sure that it began in pre-Christian times.
No less obscure is the meaning which may have attached to the Song in earliest Christianity.
The New Testament and other Christian writings that antedate the third century offer nothing
which suffices to establish the beginnings of a Christian expository tradition for the Song.
59
The
earliest extant Christian exposition of the book was authored by Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235).
Written in Greek and transmitted also in other languages, his work as preserved is fragmentary,
covering only 1:13:8*.
60
It exhibits throughout the style of a spirited address to an audience,
while the treatment of 3:14* is particularly suggestive of an Easter homily.
61

57
Otherwise, e.g., Gordis, 2, and Pope, 92. Cf. also Hanson, Allegory, 3334; and Raphael Loewe,
Apologetic Motifs in the Targum to the Song of Songs, Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations
(Studies and Texts 3; ed. Alexander Altmann; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1966) 161. A still useful
summary of older rabbinical views on the Song may be found in Joseph Bonsirven, Exgse rabbinique et
exgse paulinienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1939) 215235. He emphasizes that the various comments on
the Song attributed to tannaitic sages (first and second centuries C.E.) attest several types of symbolical
readings but do not comprise an allegorical interpretation per se, because there is yet no unified or
systematic exposition of the kind that allegory properly calls for.
58
The same reservation applies even more strongly to mystical interpretations of the Song reflected in
the Zohar and other Jewish Qabbalistic literature. Supposed connections between these sources and
early Jewish interpretation are summarized at length by Pope, 99101 and 153179 (where the
discussion of Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess [New York: Ktav, 1967] is cited extensively). See also
Loewe, Apologetic Motifs, 184193; Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and
Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
2
1960) 3642 (and especially the
Appendix D contribution of Saul Lieberman); Gershom Scholem, Ursprung und Anfnge der Kabbala
(SJ 3; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1962) especially 17, 331342; and Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah
and Its Symbolism (tr. Ralph Manheim; New York: Schocken, 1965) 3335, 138142.
59
For a different opinion, see M. Cambe, Linfluence du Cantique des cantiques sur le Nouveau
Testament, RThom 62 (1962) 526; and Brian McNeil, Avircius and the Song of Songs, Vigiliae
Christianae 31 (1977) 2334. Cf. also Jacques Winandy, Le Cantique des Cantiques et le Nouveau
Testament, RB 71 (1964) 161190.
d. (year of) death
*
1
2

3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
60
Only a small portion of the Greek text is accessible in the Migne edition (PG 10, 627630). Major
fragments of the work preserved in various languages are treated in the following: Gottlieb Nathanael
Bonwetsch, Studien zu den Kommentaren Hippolyts zum Buche Daniel und zum Hohenliede (TU 16/2
[N.F. 1]; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1897); Gottlieb Nathanael Bonwetsch, Hippolyts Kommentar zum
Hohenlied auf Grund von N. Marrs Ausgabe des grusinischen Textes (TU 23/2c [N.F. 8]; Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs, 1902); Gottlieb Nathanael Bonwetsch and H. Achelis, eds., Hippolytus Werke, Vol. 1: Hippolyts
Kommentar zum Buche Daniel und die Fragmente des Kommentars zum Hohenliede (GCS: Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs, 1897). A Latin translation of the Georgian text is available: Grard Garitte, Traits d Hippolyte
(CSCO 264; Louvain: Secretariat du CorpusSCO, 1965).
Little direct echo of Hippolytus specific points of interpretation can be heard in later
Christian commentaries, but his perspective on the biblical text well illustrates important features
of patristic exegesis. Hippolytus does not suggest that the Song is concerned with the
relationship between God and the individual human soul (which line of interpretation emerges
clearly in Origens work). Rather his approach is broadly salvation-historical. Thus the Song is
taken to be Solomonic prophecy of the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the
new; Israel is replaced by the church as the object of Gods love. If one remembers that this
work was most likely designed for sermonic purposes, it is easy to grant Hippolytus his right to
adapt the biblical text to the situation of his Christian audience. The homiletical stance is, in any
case, familiar from the New Testament and other early Christian writings: Old Testament
traditions are applied to contemporary issues and the identity of biblical Israel is typically
transferred to the church. In light of this, it is not surprising that Hippolytus interprets the (male!)
breasts in 1:2* as the two testaments.
62
The symbolical reading here need not be viewed as an
effort to salvage some spiritual meaning from an otherwise sexually provocative reference but
rather flows logically from Hippolytus understanding of the basic unity and profound
significance of the two-part Christian canon of scripture. Chappuzeaus description of this
approach is apt. The hermeneutics of Hippolytus is very concise: Through the earthly one must
view the heavenly, and through the symbolic understand the spiritual, and through the temporal
hope for the eternal. It is the task of those who love knowledge to reach this understanding of
the Scripture. The symbols of the Bible are symbols of truth, that is to say in the Song, symbols
of the truth proclaimed by Solomon and fulfilled in Christ, the new grace of God.
63

*
1
2
3
4
61
See Gertrud Chappuzeau, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes durch Hippolyt von Rom, JAC 19 (1976)
4581, especially 46 where she characterizes the work as follows: Bei dem Kommentar Hippolyts
handelt es sich zweifellos um einen Predigttext, wahrscheinlich um eine Osterpredigt. Cf. also Ohly,
Studien, 15.
62
See above, p. 9 n. 36. Other examples of Hippolytus allegorization of the Song are discussed briefly by
Hanson, Allegory, 116117, 315.
63
Gertrud Chappuzeau, Die Exegese von Hohelied 1, 2a.b und 7 bei den Kirchenvtern von Hippolyt bis
Bernhard. JAC 18 (1975) 131.
Nowhere does Hippolytus discuss allegory per se, yet his method of interpreting the Song is
the first manifestation of a Christian allegorizing tradition which comes to classical expression in
the work of Origen and his medieval successors. Before examining Origens extraordinarily
influential treatment of the Song, brief consideration of the underlying motive for Christian
allegorical exegesis is in order.
To moderns steeped in the plain sense of scripture and historical-critical methodology,
allegorical exposition as practiced by patristic and medieval commentators may appear to be
merely arbitrary, amusing, and even devious. In the particular case of the Song, it has been
supposed that the physical language and explicitly amorous content were a major embarrassment
to early Christian sensitivities and that the device of allegory, by which Hellenistic authors had
reinterpreted earlier Greek mythology, was ready at hand to provide a solution. Pope gives vivid
testimony to this view. Thus from the early days of the Church, Solomons salacious Song,
which at first blush tended to appeal to the pernicious pruriency of men, women, and children,
had to be interpreted in a way that would eliminate the evil impulse and transform and
spiritualize carnal desire into praise of virginity and celibacy and sexless passion of the human
soul and/or the Church for God, and of Gods response in kind. This was accomplished by means
of allegorical interpretation in much the same way that the Greek philosophers had managed to
change the lusty gods of Homer and Hesiod into spiritual ideals. Celibate Christian theologians
were thus able by allegory to unsex the Sublime Song and make it a hymn of spiritual and
mystical love without carnal taint. Canticum Canticorum thus became the favorite book of
ascetics and monastics who found in it, and in the expansive sermons and commentaries on it,
the means to rise above earthly and fleshly desire to the pure platonic love of the virgin soul for
God.
64
Such account of the matter is unfortunately one dimensional. A preoccupation with
eroticism is rather boldly projected onto the ancient church, while allegory is reduced to a sort of
exegetical alchemy for transmutation or spiritualization of the Songs ostensibly objectional
sexual themes. There is no reason to deny that the values and goals of Christian asceticism
contributed to and were significantly nurtured by a spiritual understanding of the Song. But the
actual course of Christian interpretationfrom the complex exegetical achievement of Origen in
the third century through the appreciative elaboration of it which continued for more than a
millennium thereaftercannot adequately be explained as an exercise in pathological rejection
of human sexuality.
Allegory served a much broader purpose in patristic and medieval Christianity: it facilitated
construction and maintenance of a Christian worldview, providing the intellectual mechanism to
effect a synthesis between Old Testament witnesses to Gods providential love for humankind
and what was confessed to be the preeminent display of that love in the Christ event. Already in
Hippolytus treatment of the Song, soteriology is the dominant concern; allegory supplied a
hermeneutical technique which enabled him to read the erotic lyrics attributed to Solomon as a
prophetic vision of the love that united God and the church through Christ. Although much more
elaborately developed, Origens approach to the Song is quite similar.
65

B. Origen on the Song of Songs

64
Pope, 114. See also William E. Phipps, The Plight of the Song of Songs, JAAR 42 (1974) 8694.
65
Origen was a younger contemporary of Hippolytus and may have been acquainted with the latters
interpretation of the Song, but there is no clear evidence to support this. Cf. Hanson, Allegory, 115116
and 251 n. 5.
Unfortunately, only a part of Origens work on the Song has survived.
66
His masterpiece was a
ten-volume commentary, written during the period 240245.
67
A few quotations of the original
Greek text are found in the writings of later exegetes and theologians; otherwise the initial three
volumes are preserved in a Latin translation made by Rufinus. The extant portion includes
Origens extensive prologue as well as his consecutive exposition of 1:12:15*. In addition, we

66
The extant Latin translations of Origens two homilies on the Song and the initial three (or, in variant
tradition, four) volumes of his commentary are published in PG 13, 35198 (with Jeromes translation of
the homilies reappearing in PL 23, 11731196); for the surviving Greek fragments and Origens scholia,
see PG 13, 197216 (Procopius excerpts) and PG 17, 253288. The standard critical edition of the
evidence is W. A. Baehrens, ed., Origenes Werke, Vol. 8 (GCS 33; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1925). On the
homilies, see also O. Rousseau, Origne: Homlies sur le Cantique des cantiques. Introduction,
traduction et notes (SC 37; Paris: Cerf, 1954
2
1966). In the discussion which follows, Origens work is
quoted from the English translation of R. P. Lawson. Origen: The Song of Songs. Commentary and
Homilies (ACW 26; Westminster, Maryland: Newman; London: Longman, Green and Co., 1957). The
prologue to the commentary is also available in a new English translation: Rowan A. Greer, Origen (The
Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Ramsey; Toronto: Paulist, 1979) 217244.
67
The work was completed while Origen was a resident of Caesarea in Palestine, where he would have
had opportunity to engage in dialogue and debate with Jewish scholars on hermeneutical issues. Yet the
extent to which Origens work on the Song is indebted to specific features of rabbinical exegesis remains
uncertain, as does the possibility that rabbinical sources include responses to his views. An intriguing
case for concrete mutual influence has been made by Reuven Kimelman, Rabbi Yoanan and Origen on
the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation, HTR 73 (1980) 567595. See also
Gustave Bardy, Les traditions juives dans loeuvre dOrigne, RB 34 (1925) 237; Loewe, Apologetic
Motifs, 169175; Urbach, Homiletical Interpretations, 251270; Y. Baer, Israel, the Christian Church,
and the Roman Empire, from the time of Septimus Severus to the Edict of Toleration of A.D. 313,
Studies in History (SH 7; ed. A. Fuks and I. Halpern; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1961) 99
106; and, more generally, Nicholas Robert Michael de Lange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-
Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: University Press, 1976).
*
1
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
have two homilies of Origen on the Song, together covering 1:12:14*; these have survived in a
Latin translation made by Jerome, who added a preface in praise of the superb quality and

6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
*
1
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
thoroughness of Origens treatment in. the commentary.
68
In the homilies themselves, Origen
develops the declarations of love made by the Songs male and female protagonists (or the
Bridegroom and the Bride as he refers to them) into a portrait of the nuptial relationship
between Christ and the church; here the female figure is only rarely identified as the individual
human soul espoused to Christ. The commentary gives much closer scrutiny to details of the
biblical text and presents Origens complex soteriological analysis at length, expounding both
the ecclesial and the psychic (individual soul) interpretations of the Bride.
69
It must suffice
here to remark on some specific aspects of Origens hermeneutics as exhibited in the
commentary.
One might easily gain the impression from the terse summaries of his work offered by
modern critical commentators that Origen quickly passed over the plain sense of the Song and

7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
68
Jerome remarks that while Origens writings, in comparison with those of other authors, are generally
superlative, in his commentary on the Song of Songs Origen excelled even himself. The homilies, Jerome
acknowledges, were composed in a popular vein and are of lesser substance; he has translated them
into Latin to provide a sample of his *Origens+ thinking, so that you may reflect how highly his great
thoughts should be esteemed, when even his little ones can so commend themselves (Lawson, 265).
69
On this, see Ohly, Studien, 1921; Lawson, 1016; and the expansive discussion in Jacques Chnevert,
Lglise dans le commentaire dOrigne sur Cantique des cantiques (Studia, Travaux de recherche 24;
Paris: Brouwer; Montral: Bellarmin, 1969).
wielded allegory with a heavy hand to craft an esoteric interpretation which suited his mystical
predilections.
70
On the contrary, the ostensible character of the text on a mundane literary level
was the foundation for Origens analysis. In the initial remarks of the methodological prologue to
his commentary, Origen characterizes the biblical work as a marriage-song [epithalamium]
which Solomon wrote in the form of a drama [dramatis in modum].
71
By drama he means
the enaction of a story on the stage, when different characters are introduced and the whole
structure of the narrative consists in their comings and goings among themselves.
72
With
comparative reference to Greek literature, he notes too that, as in the case of the Song, drama
may be composed primarily of dialogue between the characters.
73
Consistent with this view
of the genre, he establishes the dramatis personae whose verbal reflections and direct exchanges
comprise the overt content of the work: the Bride and the Bridegroom hold center stage, but
each of them also interacts with companions, the maidens (the Daughters of Jerusalem) who
accompany the woman and the friends of the groom.
Origens consideration of the work as a drama in dialogue form is by no means confined to
the opening paragraphs of his prologue. Throughout the extant sections of the commentary he
gives constant attention to supposed aspects of dramatic structure and plot, often venturing to
suggest specific scenarios only implied at best by the biblical script.
74
A particularly interesting
example of this is found in his exposition of 2:9b14*, which includes a review of the dramas

70
E.g., Theophile J. Meek, The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegesis, The Interpreters Bible, Vol. 5
(ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1956) 92. Cf. also Gerleman, 44; and Gordis, 3.
71
Lawson, 21. From the outset, to be sure, Origen emphasizes that the drama is essentially concerned
with spiritual matters (rather than, for example, one of Solomons actual marriages or love affairs). He
immediately identifies the Songs male and female protagonists as, respectively, the divine Word
(Verbum = Logos) and the soul made in his image or the Church.
72
Lawson, 22. See below, p. 58.
73
Lawson, 23.
74
See, e.g., Lawson, 58, 6263, 91, 159, 205206.
*
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
mise-en-scne. The central theme to this point has been the presence and absence of the male
lover. The action has focused on the woman as she stands at a crossroad just outside her house,
awaiting with great longing the return of her husband (who, it seems, is often away from home).
Sometimes in conversation with her handmaids, she has declared aloud her intense desire for the
man and has recalled particular assignations with him. Finally in 2:8* she sees him returning
overtopping the crests of the nearby mountains with great leaps, and so descending to the house,
where the Bride is yearning and burning for His love.
75
Origen continues to explore details of
scene and staging as he comments on the reunion of the lovers in the following verses. With
regard to 2:1213* he says: The statements that the flowers have appeared on the earth, and that
the trees have budded, tell us further that the season of spring is now with us. Therefore He calls
upon the Bride, who has doubtless sat indoors all winter, to come forth as at a fitting time.
76
Yet
having proffered such an elaborate dramatic reconstruction or historical reading of the text,
Origen immediately adds a formidable qualification: But these things seem to me to afford no
profit to the reader as far as the story goes; nor do they maintain any continuous narrative such as
we find in other Scripture stories. It is necessary, therefore, rather to give them all a spiritual
meaning.
77

14
*
8
75
Lawson, 231.
*
12
heard in our land.
13
76
Lawson, 247.
77
Lawson, 247. This illustrates an important feature of Origens exegetical method; see especially his
discussion in De Principiis, Book 4 Chapter 2, where he argues that the lack of logically coherent
narrative meaning in biblical passages indicates or necessitates spiritual interpretation (cf. Greer,
Origen, 183).
These last remarks of Origen clearly point to the controlling purpose of his exegesis.
Appropriately understood as a part of scripture, the Song should address the spiritual needs of its
audience. His chief concern is for theological relevance. Nevertheless, the allegorical method
which enables him to pursue this goal is not arbitrarily adopted but rather proceeds from a
conscientious assessment of the literary character of the text itself.
In the prologue, Origen also formulates his approach to the Song in consideration of its
canonical position as the third of the books of wisdom authored by Solomon.
78
He avers that this
arrangement of the works is not gratuitous; it rather corresponds to and inspired the tripartite
philosophical curriculum of the Greeks.
79
Wishing, therefore, to distinguish one from another
those three branches of learning, which we called general just nowthat is, the moral, the
natural, and the inspective, and to differentiate between them, Solomon issued them in three
books, arranged in their proper order. First, in Proverbs he taught the moral science, putting rules
for living into the form of short and pithy maxims, as was fitting. Secondly, he covered the
science known as natural in Ecclesiastes; in this, by discussing at length the things of nature, and
by distinguishing the useless and vain from the profitable and essential, he counsels us to forsake
vanity and cultivate things useful and upright. The inspective science likewise he propounded in
this little book that we have now in handthat is, the Song of Songs. In this he instills into the
soul the love of things divine and heavenly, using for his purpose the figure of the Bride and
Bridegroom, and teaches us that communion with God must be attained by the paths of charity
and love.
80
In effect, the setting of the Song in the larger corpus of divinely inspired wisdom is
taken by Origen as a mandate for reading the work as an advanced course in spirituality.
81

It is easy to recognize in Origens exposition of the Song, as generally elsewhere in his
writings, the influence of Hellenistic intellectual currents which also shape Neo-Platonism and
Christian Gnosticism.
82
A prime example of this is the dualistic anthropology that sustains his

78
See above, pp. 67 and n. 17.
79
The branches of learning by means of which men generally attain to knowledge of things are the
three which the Greeks called Ethics, Physics and Enoptics; these we may call respectively moral,
natural, and inspective (Lawson, 3940). Origen cites 1 Kings 5:910[4:2930]* to support his claim
that all the sages of the Greeks borrowed these ideals from Solomon, who had learnt them by the Spirit
of God at an age and time long before their own (Lawson, 40).
80
Lawson, 41. See also the remarks of Greer, Origen, 23.
81
A similar contextual argument is found in Origens discussion of the books title, which he understands
to express the superlative in relation to six earlier (i.e., pre-Solomonic) hymnic compositions in Hebrew
scripture: the Song of the Sea in Ex 15; the Song of the Well in Num 21:1718*; the Song of Moses
in Deut 32; the Song of Deborah in Judg 5; the Song of David in 2 Sam 22; and the hymn of the
Asaphites in 1 Chr 16. These songs he takes to mark the progress of the Brides advance in spiritual
understanding, culminating in her introduction through marriage into the perfect mystery of Gods
love (Lawson, 4650; cf. Loewe, Apologetic Motifs, 169170).
82
Origens indebtedness to Platonic thought is well known; see especially Harry Austryn Wolfson, The
Philosophy of the Church Fathers: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge: Harvard University,
3
1970) 270
quest for the spiritual significance of a work whose erotic plot and imagery he does not deny.
At least in part, the anthropology is grounded in scripture. Especially in the creation accounts of
Genesis and the Pauline epistles, Origen finds support for the view that every individual human
is comprised of two persons: the inner, which is the soul, created in the image and likeness of
God; and the outer, the physical body, secondarily fashioned by God from the dust of the earth.
83

Since these two persons are counterparts, coexisting in earthly life, scripture generally uses the
same terminology to describe their various attributes and activities. What is said literally about
the outer, physical person should, if properly understood, apply in a figurative sense to the inner
person, promoting the spiritual growth of the soul in its desire for communion with God (i.e.,
salvation). It is in this context that Origen acknowledges the Song to pose an unusual danger for
immature readers. Anyone still living only in accord with the outer person of flesh not [yet]
knowing how to hear loves language in purity and with chaste ears, will twist the whole manner
of his hearing of it away from the inner spiritual man and on to the outward and carnal; and he
will be turned away from the spirit to the flesh, and will foster carnal desires in himself, and it
will seem to be the Divine Scriptures that are urging and egging him on to fleshly lust!
84
On the
other hand, those who possess the maturity to hear the Song correctly, as addressed to the
deepest needs of their inner selves, are taught that among the varieties and objects of human
desire the only laudable love is that which is directed to God and to the powers of the
soul.
85

Closely related to Origens ontology of human person-hood is a complex epistemological
rationale for his hermeneutics. This too is part of a broader cosmology which is conspicuously
indebted to Platonic thought. For example, in consideration, of Wisdom 7:1721* Origen writes:

280 and 571573. Greer calls Origen a Christian Platonist and observes that he as well as Plotinus,
must be regarded as one of the founders of Neoplatonism (Origen, 5; see also 912, 2528).
83
For this, Origen specifically cites Gen 1:26* (the inner person) and Gen 2:7* (the fleshly creature), and
develops the distinction on the basis of various Pauline statements, notably Rom 7:22*; 1 Cor 3:12*;
13:11*; and 2 Cor 4:16* (Lawson, 2427).
84
Lawson, 22. Origen also refers here to a tradition among the Jews to allow no one even to hold this
book in his hands, who has not reached a full and ripe age (Lawson, 23). Cf. Urbach, Homiletical
Interpretations, 252 and n. 14.
85
Lawson, 36.
*
17
For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and
the activity of the elements;
18
the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the
seasons,
19
the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars,
Since, then, it is impossible for a man living in the flesh to know anything of matters hidden and
invisible unless he has apprehended some image and likeness thereto from among things visible,
I think that He who made all things in wisdom so created all species of visible things upon earth,
that He placed in them some teaching and knowledge of things invisible and heavenly, whereby
the human mind might mount to spiritual understanding and seek the grounds of things in
heaven.
86
Just as the outer person of flesh is an imperfect counterpart of the soul, so all
phenomena of this world in some measure correspond to and hence may symbolize perfect,
spiritual forms existing in the heavenly realm. For Origen, scripture is no exception, somehow
exempt from this equation. Scripture is revelatory precisely because it epitomizes the
conjunction of visible and invisible matters, disclosing heavenly mysteries while cloaking them
in the language, events, and diverse physical manifestations of earthly reality.
87
When viewed
from this perspective, allegory is much less a method that Origen brings to the text in order to
explicate it than a metaphysical presupposition: his exegesis assumes that spiritual meaning is
an inherent dimension of the biblical text itself. His method is, rather, disciplined attention to
issues of literary context and semantics; for however imaginative or overly ingenious his
symbolical interpretations may seem to modern readers, his exegetical practice in the
commentary on the Song is consistent with his hermeneutical theory that only by first grasping
the outer, literal meaning may human minds perceive or at least glimpse the spiritual sense
hidden within.
88

Origens commentary on the Song of Songs is an intellectual achievement of monumental
proportions, a grand synthesis of exegetical reasoning, philosophical reflection, and theological
vision. Yet to understand the extraordinary impact of the work on subsequent generations of
interpreters, it is equally important to stress that the whole is imbued with the excitement of a

20
the natures of animals and the tempers of wild animals, the powers of spirits and the thoughts of
human beings, the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots;
21
I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
Wisdom of Solomon 7:1721 (NRSV)
86
Lawson, 220.
87
Cf. Lawson, 74, 218221. Origens incarnational view of the inspiration of scripture is fully presented in
his De Principiis, Book 4. Note especially the following formulation (Chapter 1.7; Greer, Origen, 177):
But just as divine providence is not refuted, especially for those who are sure of its existence, because
its works or operations cannot be comprehended by human capacities, so neither will the divine
inspiration that extends through the entire body of sacred Scripture be called into question because the
weakness of our understanding is not strong enough to discover in each different verse the obscure and
hidden meanings. This is because the treasure of divine wisdom is hidden in the baser and rude vessel of
words (citing 2 Cor 4:7*).
88
For example, the comparison of the man to a young stag or hart in 2:9* leads Origen into a lengthy
consideration of other biblical passages where the term appears, for the purpose of discerning the
spiritual reality both hidden by and revealed through the mundane images (Lawson, 216228).
scholar who considered himself, first and foremost, a spiritual pilgrim and who wrote to
convince others that the Song charted the final, sublime stages of lifes journey into communion
with God.
C. Christian Interpretation in the Middle Ages
During the later patristic period and the rest of the Middle Ages, Christian interpreters wrote
more works on the Song of Songs than on any other individual book of the Old Testament. To be
sure, the great majority of these writings as known to us are homiletical and devotional
expositions rather than systematic commentaries. Many of them were never completed or treat
only small portions of the biblical text, and none rivals the exegetical scope and hermeneutical
sophistication of Origens commentary. While it is clear, too, that medieval Christian
interpretation of the Song consists largely of variations on Origenist themes, some particular
developments merit attention.
89

By the end of the fifth century, Origens quest for the spiritual meaning of the Song was an
established tradition, especially in western Christendom, having won the enthusiastic
endorsement of such influential patristic authors as Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Ambrose,
Theodoret, and Cyril of Alexandria.
90
We cannot pass over this era, however, without
mentioning an alternative approach to the Song which came to be associated almost exclusively
with the views of Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia from 392428. As the intellectual
figurehead of the so-called Antiochene school of exegesis and theology, Theodore epitomized
resistance to the allegorical emphasis of Alexandrian hermeneutics in general and Origens
exegetical work in particular.
91
As far as we know, Theodore never authored a comprehensive
study of the Song, but his perspective on the biblical work seems to be cogently represented in
the extracts of a letter he had written to a friend, preserved as part of the evidence brought
against Theodore when he was posthumously condemned by the Second Council of

89
Detailed surveys of the relevant evidence may be found in the following special studies: F. Cavallera,
A. Cabassut, and M. Olphe-Galliard, Cantique des cantiques. II: Histoire de linterprtation spirituelle,
Dictionnaire de Spiritualit, Vol. 2 (ed. Marcel Viller et al.; Paris: Beauchesne, 1953) 93109; Rosemarie
Herde, Das Hohelied in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum 12 Jahrhundert (Mnchener
Beitrge zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung *Estratto da Studi medievali 3/8 (1967) 957
1073]; Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull alto medioeva, 1968); Helmut Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit
der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters (Beitrge zur Geschichte der
Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen 38/3; Mnster: Aschendorf,
1958); and George L. Scheper, The Spiritual Marriage: The Exegetic History and Literary Impact of the
Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ph.D. dissertation; Princeton University, 1971).
90
Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 404452, provides an excellent treatment, especially of the views of
Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine.
91
An insightful discussion of Theodores exegetical methods and hermeneutical emphases, in
comparison with those of Origen, is provided by Rowan A. Greer, Theodore of Mopsuestia: Exegete and
Theologian (Westminster: Faith, 1961) 86131. On Theodores work as exegete, see also Smalley, Study,
1420; and Maurice F. Wiles, Theodore of Mopsuestia as Representative of the Antiochene School,
CHB 1, 489510.
Constantinople in 553.
92
According to these extracts, Theodore vigorously rejected the notion
that the Song should be understood as Solomonic prophecy of the spiritual relationship between
Christ and the church. Rather, he suggested, for the contemporary Christian reader the Song had
only limited didactic and apologetic relevance, the work being comprised of love poetry that
Solomon had apparently written in response to popular criticism of his marriage to the dark-
skinned daughter of pharaoh. While this example of Theodores literal exegesis was only
peripheral to the charge that he was the father of Nestorianism, his condemnation by the
Second Council was unfortunately to cast a long shadow over the subsequent history of the
Songs interpretation.
Gregory the Great (540604), a Benedictine monk who became pope, played a major part in
shaping medieval Christian interpretation of the Song along Origenist lines. As an exegete,
Gregory was neither erudite nor particularly innovative, but there is a clarity and provocative
eloquence to his style that no doubt contributed to the popularity of his writings. Most of his
extant reflections on the Bible, including his treatments of the Song, are explicitly homiletical
compositions, written during an era when the Roman empire was under severe attack; Gregory
sensitively addressed his expositions to audiences in need of encouragement, enlightenment, and
spiritual fortitude.
93
His influence was far-reaching, especially because the later florilegia drew
extensively on his work, making it accessible to such notable commentators of the following
centuries as Bede and William of Saint Thierry.
Gregory dealt with the Song in two homilies, together consisting of a hermeneutical
overview of the book and expository comments on its initial eight verses.
94
His introductory
remarks sketch a succinct rationale for allegorical exposition in relationship to the fallen state of
humankind. Allegory, which is defined by Gregory as a kind of machine (quasi quandam
machinam), may serve to elevate to God the soul that, after the expulsion of the primal human
couple from the garden of Eden, is otherwise cut off from intimate knowledge of divine realities.

92
PG 66, 699700 [Expositio in Canticum canticorum]. For discussion of Theodores remarks on the
Song and their import in the proceedings of the Second Council of Constantinople, see Louis Pirot,
Loeuvre exgtique de Thodore de Mopsueste, 350428 aprs J.-C. (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici;
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1913) 131137; and J. M. Vost, Loeuvre exgtique de Thodore de
Mopsueste au II
e
concile de Constantinople, RB 38 (1929) 394395.
93
Smalley (Study, 33) succinctly relates the character of Gregorys expository work to his historical
context: St. Gregory was preaching at a moment when civilization seemed to be condemned. He
finished his homilies on Ezechiel with a barbarian army at the gates of Rome, when men returning with
their hands chopped off told him that some were prisoners, others dead. Spiritual instruction was what
his audience needed, simple for the clergy and people, more advanced for the religious. The problems of
biblical scholarship did not concern him.
94
PL 79, 471492. The remainder of the Expositio super Cantica canticorum attributed to Gregory (PL
79, 492548) has been identified as an eleventh century contribution of Robert of Tombelaine; cf. Ohly,
Studien, 60 and the literature there cited. In the notes which follow, references are to the newer critical
edition of Gregorys homilies on the Song: Patricius Verbraken (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Magni (CCSL 144;
Tyrnholti: Brepols, 1963) 346 [Expositiones in Canticum canticorum].
Although the resulting viewpoint is similar to Origens, it is quickly established, without
recourse to philosophical arguments: In the things we know, out of which allegories are made,
the divine sentences are clothed, and by recognizing the outer words we arrive at the inner
understanding.
95
Moreover, far from being an exercise in human exegetical ingenuity or psychic
self-illumination, allegorical method is consistent with Gregorys understanding of God as the
initiating and continuing agent of biblical revelation. Thus, with reference to Habakkuk 3:3*,
Gregory compared expository insight with the experience of epiphany, because sacred scripture
could be likened to a kind of mountain from which the Lord comes, to be understood in our
hearts.
96
This perspective enabled Gregory to expound the spiritual significance of the Song, but
without hesitating in the least to acknowledge the erotic character and conspicuously physical
language of the work. Accordingly, he underscored the fact that in this book are mentioned
kisses, breasts, cheeks, thighs in order to make the point that by the words of love that is
below, the soul may be moved to love that which is above.
97
It is due to divine mercy that the
Songs exuberant celebration of physical love becomes a call, inviting the human soul to burn all
the more intensely with the sublime love of God.
At many specific points in these homilies, Gregory is directly indebted to Origens work.
98

Like Origen, he understood the Song to be comprised essentially of speeches describing the
experiences of two lovers, a bride and a groom, whom he identified allegorically as the perfect
church and her divine Lord. The secondary parts of the maidens associated with the bride and the
friends of the groom were also, in his view, ultimately to be identified with the ecclesial bride.
99

Perhaps the most distinctive features of Gregorys exposition reflect his devotion to monastic

95
Expositiones, par. 2 (Verbraken, 34): Rebus enim nobis notis, per quas allegoriae conficiuntur,
sententiae diuinae uestiuntur et, dum recognoscimus exteriora uerba, peruenimus ad interiorem
intellegentiam.
*
3
God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His glory covered the heavens, and the
earth was full of his praise.
Habakkuk 3:3 (NRSV)
96
Expositiones, para. 5 (Verbraken, 7): Scriptura enim sacra mons quidam est, de quo in nostris cordibus
ad intellegendum dominus uenit.
97
Expositiones, par. 3 (Verbraken, 4): per uerba amoris, qui infra est, excitetur ad amorem, qui supra
est. Nominantur enim in hoc libro oscula, nominantur ubera, nominantur genae, nominantur femora.
98
E.g., Gregory followed Origen in speaking of the Sabbath of Sabbaths by analogy with the Song of
Songs: Expositiones, par. 6 (Verbraken, 8); cf. Origen, First Homily, par. 1 (Lawson, 266).
99
Expositiones, par. 10 (Verbraken, 13): Sponsa enim ipsa perfecta ecclesia est; sponsus, dominus;
adulescentulae uero cum sponsa sunt inchoantes animae et per nouum studium pubescentes; sodales uero
sponsi sunt siue angeli, qui saepe hominibus ab ipso uenientes apparuerunt, seu certe perfecti quique uiri
in ecclesia, qui ueritatem hominibus nuntiare nouerunt.
spirituality and contemplation.
100
In commenting on the fervent wish in 1:2a*, for example, he
interpreted the lovers kiss to be a symbol of divine colloquy. Gregory quoted Numbers 12:6
8*, which uses the expression mouth to mouth to convey the peculiar intimacy of Gods
conversations with Moses, and concluded that the Lord as it were kissed Moses with the kiss of
his mouth ; this reading yielded in turn the figurative sense that Gregory sought for 1:2a*:
To speak mouth to mouth is as it were to kiss, and to touch the mind by inner understanding.
101

The interpretation so adumbrated was to be expansively developed in the Sermones of Bernard of
Clairvaux.
The Venerable Bede (d. 735) is another influential link in the chain of exegetes who
transmitted the classical view of the Song to the later Middle Ages. Bede did not have direct
access to Origens work, but he drew selectively on the expositions of other predecessors,
including the homilies of Gregory the Great, to produce a thorough and coherent commentary,
albeit one that broke little new ground.
102
It is noteworthy that while Bede understood the Song
along traditional linesas Solomonic prophecy of Christian mysterieshe employed allegory in
restrained fashion to develop the presumed textual portrait of the nuptial relationship between
Christ and the church; only rarely did he refer to the individual soul interpretation of the bride.
Bedes strong ecclesial emphasis set the tone for later medieval commentaries and sermons
which celebrated the Songs female protagonist as the unblemished church of the saints (sine

100
Cf. Henri de Lubac, The Sources of Revelation (tr. Luke ONeill; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968) 50:
Gregory is a monk, and his is a monastic exegesis. He popularizes the conception of the Bible as a
mirror of human activity or of the inner man. But above and beyond the tropology which he zealously
cultivates, as a conscientious shepherd of souls, he still searches for the spiritual allegory which will
allow him to unfold the wing of contemplation.
*
6
And he said, Hear my words: When there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to
them in visions; I speak to them in dreams.
7
Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house.
8
With him I speak face to faceclearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then
were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?
Numbers 12:68 (NRSV)
101
Expositiones, par. 15 (Verbraken, 1718): Quasi osculo oris sui osculabatur Moysen dominus, Os
quippe ad os loqui quasi osculari est et interna intellegentia mentem tangere.
102
PL 91, 10651236 [Expositionis in Cantica canticorum]. On the character and significance of Bedes
expository work, cf. Smalley, Study, 3536.
macula), in contrast to or in disregard of the sinners who comprised its temporal membership.
103

The Song thus came to serve increasingly as scriptural warrant for viewing the church as the
actualization of a sort of platonic ideal, the pristine bride of Christ garbed in spiritual splendor.
To be sure, there were some, such as William of Auvergne, who offered very sharp criticism of
the ecclesial situation in the high Middle Ages, but it was all too easy for Christians to become
enraptured by the vision which the Song was supposed to project.
The patristic heritage of interpretation yielded a rich harvest of exegetical and homiletical
reflection on the Song throughout the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. At the beginning of
this period, Rupert of Deutz (d. 1129) developed an approach already suggested in the writings
of Ambrose and became the first medieval scholar to apply a thoroughgoing Marian exegesis to
the Song.
104
His identification of the woman with the Blessed Virgin, as the figure most
representative of the church in her true colors, gave new form and impetus to the idealization of
the church noted above. Among the numerous contributions from the period, one can observe
interesting differences between the expository work issuing from cathedral schools on the one
hand and that which reflects the revival of monastic spirituality on the other.
105
The academic
approach known as sacra pagina, which understood scripture to be the inspired repository of
doctrinal and ethical wisdom, is exemplified in the Song commentary of Anselm of Laon (d.
1117).
106
Conversely, the exposition of William of Saint Thierry (d. about 1148) well illustrates
renewed monastic devotion to lectio divina, in which the Song is much less a source of revealed
knowledge about the relationship between Christ and the church than an instrument of spiritual
illumination.
107
In general, while the scholastic commentaries expound the text in systematic
fashion, the monastic expositions have an affective character and are typically incomplete or

103
Cf. Helmut Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des
Mittelalters (Beitrge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und
Untersuchungen 38/3; Mnster: Aschendorf, 1958) 400403.
104
PL 168, 837962 [Commentaria in Cantica canticorum]. Cf. Gustave Bardy, Marie et le Cantique chez
les Pres, BVC 7 (1954) 3241; and Henri de Lubac, Mditation sur lglise (Collection Theologique,
tudes publies sous la direction de la Facult de Thologie S.J. de Lyon-Fourvire 27; Paris: Montaigne,
1953) 273324.
105
For discussion, see Jean Leclercq, From Gregory to Saint Bernard, CHB 2, 183197, especially 189
193; and the full treatment in Smalley, Study, 37263.
106
PL 162, 11871228 [Enarrationes in Cantica canticorum]. Cf. Ohly, Studien, 112120.
107
PL 180, 473546 [Expositio altera super Cantica canticorum]. The following translations, with
introductory comments, may be noted: J.-M. Dchanet and M. Dumontier, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry:
Expos sur le Cantique des cantiques (SC 82; Paris: Cerf, 1962); and Columba Hart, tr., The Works of
William of St. Thierry, Vol. 2: Exposition on the Song of Songs (CFS 6; Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian
Publications, 1970).
unfinished. As Leclercq has remarked, when the monks felt they had said what they wanted to
say about love, they had the right to put down the pen.
108

Those who are acquainted with the forceful role that Bernard of Clairvaux played in the
ecclesiastical politics of his age, especially his advocacy of the Crusades and his part in the
affairs of Peter Abelard and Peter (the Venerable) of Cluny, may be tempted to tread warily
into the realm of his expository work.
109
Yet Bernards Sermones in Canticum are widely
recognized to be at once the crowning achievement of the approach to the Song initiated by
Origen and the superlative contribution of monastic theology to Christian spirituality.
110
Two
preliminary points are pertinent to an assessment of this remarkable effort. First, the work is a
product par excellence of monastic lectio divina and exhibits virtually no interest in scholastic
Sic et Non. It is neither an exegetical commentary nor even a consecutive homiletical exposition
but a series of eighty-six sermons basedat times quite looselyon selected verses and themes,
most of them from the initial two chapters of the Song. The repetitive elaboration of key texts
111

reflects Bernards understanding of their import but also in part the fact that the sermons were
delivered and redacted over a period of about eighteen years (11351153). Second, although the
sermons in their published form quickly reached a wider public, the majority of them directly
attest their origin in addresses which Bernard delivered to conferences of the Cistercian monks of
Clairvaux.
112
It should be noted that those who comprised this order were not all men who had
lived the hot-house existence one might associate with a monastery. Many in Bernards monastic
audiences were undoubtedly worldly figures, among them former knights who had served in the
armies of the Crusades and who knew what life was about. We can only admire the temerity and
insight of Bernard to choose the Song as the scriptural basis for his prolonged and wide-ranging
instructions on the discipline of Christian spirituality.
113

108
Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire of God: A Study of Monastic Culture (tr. Catherine
Misrahi; New York: Fordham University, 1961) 107.
109
Cf. Pope, 123124.
110
PL 183, 7991198; now superseded by the critical edition: Jean Leclercq, Henri M. Rochais, and
Charles H. Talbot, eds., Sancti Bernardi opera, Vols. 12 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957, 1958). A
new English translation of the Sermones, based on the critical edition, has appeared: Kilian Walsh and
Irene M. Edmonds, trs., [The Works of] Bernard of Clairvaux: On the Song of Songs, 4 Vols. (CFS 4, 7, 31,
40; Spencer, Massachusetts/Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 197180) [cited below as CFS
with vol. number].
111
E.g., Bernard returns again and again to the sense and significance of the kiss in 1:2*.
112
On the compositional history of the work, see especially the introductory essay of Jean Leclercq in
CFS 7, viixxx.
113
Cf. Jean Leclercq, Monks on Marriage: A Twelfth-Century View (New York: Seabury, 1982) 7386.
Leclercq points out very effectively how the language of (nuptial) sexual union is much to the fore in
Bernards Sermones. Even when Bernard enters fully into the metaphor of the spiritual marriage of the
human soul with God, sexual references are never taboo, or the object of repression. The boldness of
the erotic imagery is, of course, based on the explicit language of the Song. Cf. also Jean Leclercq, Monks
Throughout the sermons, one is struck by Bernards thorough acquaintance with the Old and
New Testaments. Not only does he make frequent use of scriptural quotations, especially from
the Pauline epistles, to illustrate and establish his points, but his reflections are suffused with
biblical allusions. In particular, the language of the Psalms had clearly become second nature to
him, and it is this which he skillfully uses to construct a universe of meaning around the Song. At
the same time, however, Bernard rarely attends to the kinds of semantic issues which occupied
many of his predecessors, most notably Origen, nor does he self-consciously rely on allegorical
method to make the literal text yield an appropriately spiritual sense. As he says apologetically
on one occasion, pausing in the midst of an unusually extended inquiry into the significance of
the number seven, it is not so much my desire to explain words as it is to influence hearts.
114

This affective purpose, rather than an exegetical technique or hermeneutical stance as such, is
eloquently announced in Bernards introductory sermon. Here he offers a bare sketch of the
Solomonic provenance of the sublime Song, yet his apparent aim in doing so is less to inform
than to whet the appetite of his audience.
115
Instruction on the Song, he suggests, has a
sacramental analogy: Solomons inspired poetry is like a loaf of bread, which is to be broken
open through sensitive exposition and fed to those who are prepared to receive its spiritual
nourishment.
116
In short, Bernard is a mystic, and his sermons are immediately addressed to
those who seek not merely knowledge of the divine mysteriessuch as allegory might unfold
from the scriptural textbut consummation of spiritual union with God.
In view of Bernards intended audience and his clearly stated purpose, it is perhaps not
surprising that there is a conspicuous experiential dimension to his homiletical reflections. The
Bible, as we have noted, supplied his theological vocabulary and specific texts focused his

and Love in Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979) especially 16
23.
114
Sermon 16.1 *authors tr.+: sed nec studium tam esse mihi ut exponam verba, quam ut imbuam corda.
115
Sermon 1.68, with the final paragraph as follows: We must conclude then it was a special divine
impulse that inspired these songs of his [Solomon] that now celebrate the praises of Christ and his
Church, the gift of holy love, the sacrament of endless union with God. Here too are expressed the
mounting desires of the soul, its marriage song, an exultation of spirit poured forth in figurative
language pregnant with delight. It is no wonder that like Moses he put a veil on his face, equally
resplendent as it must have been in this encounter, because in those days few if any could sustain the
bright vision of Gods glory. Accordingly, because of its excellence, I consider this nuptial song to be well
deserving of the title that so remarkably designates it, the Song of Songs, just as he in whose honor it is
sung is uniquely proclaimed King of kings and Lord of lords (CFS 4, 5).
116
Sermon 1.14. The concluding paragraph of this sermon (1.12) offers both a warning and an
invitation: The novices, the immature, those but recently converted from a worldly life, do not normally
sing this song or hear it sung. Only the mind disciplined by persevering study, only the man whose
efforts have borne fruit under Gods inspiration, the man whose years, as it were, make him ripe for
marriageyears measured out not in time but in meritsonly he is truly prepared for nuptial union
with the divine partner (CFS 4, 7).
thoughts, which in any case range far and wide across the arena of human life and, particularly,
the relationship of individual persons to God. But for Bernard it does not suffice to expound
scriptural texts as though they were self-authenticating witnesses to divine truths. Time and time
again he completes or interrupts the discussion of an exegetical point with an appeal to the
experience of his audience. In the introductory sermon, for example, his brief remarks on the
superlative character of the Song of Songs are followed by a question that draws his hearers
into the expository effort: Furthermore if you look back on your own experience, is it not in that
victory by which your faith overcomes the world, , that you yourselves sing a new song to the
Lord for all the marvels he has performed?
117
Similarly, in the midst of a somewhat abstruse
interpretation of pharaohs chariots and horsemen (with reference to 1:9*), Bernard observes: I
have no doubt that some of you understand what I am saying from your own experience, which
enables you even to anticipate my words.
118
For Bernard, indeed, the revelatory significance of
the Song is discovered in the reciprocity between its declarations and the innermost emotions and
desires of the human soul, so that he can speak of interpreting a text that is the book of our own
experience.
119
What the mutual exposition of Song and self reveals is the greatest experience,
which forms and sustains the bond of spiritual marriage: Certainly honor and glory are due to
God, and to Him alone; but neither of these will He receive, if they be not, as it were, seasoned
with the honey of love. Love is alone sufficient by itself; it pleases by itself, and for its own sake.
It is itself a merit, and itself its own recompense. It seeks neither cause, nor consequences,
beyond itself. It is its own fruit, its own object and usefulness. I love, because I love; I love, that
I may love. Love, then, is a great reality, and very precious, provided that it recurs to the
principle on which it rests, that it is kept in continual relation with Him who is its origin, and
draws from that pure source waters that flow continually in greater abundance.When God
loves us, He desires nothing else than to be loved, because He loves us that He may be loved by
us knowing that those who love Him become blessed by their love itself.
120

Because Bernards sermons on the Song primarily explored the spiritual dimensions of
human experience, rather than emphasizing the particularity of the biblical text or exegetical
techniques by means of which some sublime theological sense might be extracted from it, his
work has a timelessness as well as personal immediacy that enabled it to speak to audiences and
generations at far remove from his own setting. Certainly the heritage of patristic and earlier
medieval Christian interpretation as he developed it continued to exert major influence on

117
Sermon 1.9 (CFS 4, 5).
*
9
118
Sermon 39.3 (CFS 7, 193).
119
Sermon 3.1 (CFS 4, 16).
120
Sermon 83.4 *authors tr.+.
Christian readings of the Song for centuries, not only through the periods of Reformation and
Renaissance but well beyond.
121

D. Jewish Interpretation in the Middle Ages
The problem of tracing the development of a coherent tradition of Jewish exegesis of the Song
persists into the centuries of late antiquity. This is due to the character of the available sources
but also, and at deeper level, to hermeneutical differences between Christian exegetical efforts
examined above and those of classical rabbinic Judaism. Not until post-Talmudic times or the
early Islamic period did the agenda of Jewish scholarship include production of connected
expositions of the Song, comparable to the work of patristic authors. Nevertheless, there is no
reason to doubt that already during the amoraic period (third and fourth centuries C.E.) the Song
was a popular resource especially for homiletical reflection on basic themes of Jewish identity
and doctrine. The pertinent evidence consists of diverse comments and short sermons, treating
individual verses of the Song, which in classical rabbinic sources and later literature are
attributed to amoraic sages. The interpretations so attested are typically figurative and in many
specific instances strikingly similar to those found in patristic commentaries. Although direct
influence in either direction is difficult to establish, it may be of particular historical importance
that one of the amoraic authorities most frequently cited in connection with the Songs sense and
significance is Rabbi Yoanan of Tiberias, a third-century contemporary of Origen.
122

Comments attributed to Yoanan and other Palestinian amoraim figure prominently in the
oldest extant midrash on the Song, Canticles Rabbah (also known as Midr zt).
123
This is
an eclectic work, drawing heavily on earlier rabbinical sources; its composition has been dated
on the basis of internal evidence to the beginning of the seventh century. Especially noteworthy
is the hermeneutical perspective established in the works extensive introduction, which consists
of five expository proems, based respectively on Proverbs 22:29*, Psalm 45:17*, Proverbs

121
For documentation, see especially Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 337347; and Pope, 112131, 183
210; cf. also Rowley, Interpretation, 201218.
122
See n. 67 above.
123
For an introduction to the work, with assessment of its date, provenance and sources, see Samuel
Tobias Lachs, Prolegomena to Canticles Rabba, JQR 55 (196465) 235255. Cf. also Moshe David Herr,
Song of Songs Rabbah, EncJud 15, 152154; and Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Shir ha-Shirim (Canticles)
Rabbah, JE 11, 291292. Extant also are two later (10th11th century) collections of Jewish homiletical
expositions of the Song: Aggdat r harm, known also as Midr s r harm z (Solomon
Schechter, ed., [Cambridge: Bell, 1896]; Salomon Buber, ed.,
, , [Berlin, 1894; Wilno,
2
1925]); and Midr r harm (Lazar
Grnhut, ed., [Jerusalem/Jaffa, 1897]).
*
29
Do you see those who are skillful in their work? They will serve kings; they will not serve common
people.
Proverbs 22:29 (NRSV)
16:23*, Ecclesiastes 12:9*, and Proverbs 2:4*.
124
The proems highlight various aspects of
Solomons career and character, portraying him as builder, capable successor to David, and
preeminently wise ruler; only minor variations appear in the affirmation that concludes each
proem: the holy spirit rested on him and he composed three books, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and
The Song of Songs.
125
The point so underscored pertains to the way in which these particular
books are to be read and interpreted, and not simply to Solomons worthiness of the inspiration
that enabled him to author them. Solomons literary creations attest that he was a diligent student
of scripture and a preeminently sagacious teacher whose proverbs and parables penetrated to
the finest nuances of the Torah.
126
Prior to Solomon no one was able to understand properly
the words of the Torah, but as soon as Solomon arose all began to comprehend the Torah.
127
In
short, the three canonical books attributed to Solomon are to be understood as comprised of
revealed and artful commentary on the central truths of Mosaic scripture. This perspective
warrants an exegetical approach to the Song substantially different from that pursued by Origen
and other Christian allegorists. Whereas the latter sought to see beyond the mundane meaning of
the Song, supposing its concrete imagery and dramatic structure to provide a comprehensive

*
16
In the place of ancestors you, O king, shall have sons; you will make them princes in all the earth.
Psalm 45:16 (NRSV)
*
23
The mind of the wise makes their speech judicious, and adds persuasiveness to their lips.
*
9
Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and
arranging many proverbs.
Ecclesiastes 12:9 (NRSV)
*
4
if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures
Proverbs 2:4 (NRSV)
124
Cf. Samuel Tobias Lachs, The Proems of Canticles Rabba, JQR 56 (196566) 225239.
125
Cant. Rab. 1:1.59 (Simon, 45, 7, 9, 10, 13).
126
Cant. Rab. 1:1.8 (Simon, 10).
127
guide to spiritual mysteries, classical Jewish exposition suggests that the Solomonic text in its
literal sense is a sort of poetic prism, intentionally designed to refract the light of Torah already
revealed and enabling its spectrum of hues to be more clearly perceived and appreciated by
diligent interpreters.
Congruent with this understanding of the Songs function, the individual comments and brief
homilies collected in the remainder of Canticles Rabbah are arranged according to the sequence
of the biblical text but they do not provide a full, internally consistent exposition. Instead, they
attest to a lively process of interpretation, illustrating the expository discussions and multiple
insights of rabbinical inquiry (dra) which explored connections between the language of the
Song and other scriptural texts. Most often, but by no means exclusively, the Songs imagery is
related to Sinaitic themes and eventsi.e., Israels acquisition of normative Torahwith the
male protagonist usually supposed to represent God (or a divine surrogate or sometimes Moses)
and the female identified as the community of Gods people or individual Israelites. Although
allegorizing is only one of the associative techniques employed by the commentators, it is
conspicuous. For instance, the kisses of his mouth in 1:2* (which Gregory took to symbolize
divine colloquy with believers, in light of Gods personal address to Moses on Sinai) are
associated in a comment attributed to Rabbi Yohanan with the intimate revelation of individual
stipulations of the Decalogue to the assembled host of Israel: An angel carried the utterances [at
Mount Sinai] from before the Holy One, blessed be He, each one in turn, and brought it to each
of the Israelites and said to him, Do you take upon yourself this commandment? The
Israelite would answer him, Yes. He then said, Do you accept the divinity of the Holy One,
blessed be He? and he answered, Yes, yes. Thereupon he kissed him on the mouth.
128
The
reference to breasts in the same verse (understood by Hippolytus to represent the Old and New
Testaments) figuratively connotes the written and oral Torah in Yohanans exposition.
129

Interpretations may take the form of simile rather than allegory per se, as in a comment on 4:5*,
comparing the female breasts to Moses and Aaron: Just as the breasts are the beauty and the
ornament of a woman, so Moses and Aaron were the beauty and ornament of Israel.
130
While
some interest in establishing hermeneutical rules for the identification of key symbols is noted,
again with specific reference to the views of Yohanan, they are neither rigorously followed in the
comments collected nor used as criteria to assess the validity of alternative readings.
131

128
Cant. Rab. 1:2.2 (Simon, 2122).
129
*
5
130
131
Note especially Cant. Rab. 1:2.11 (end): R. Judan and R. Levi in the name of R. Johanan said:
Wherever you find in this scroll the expression king Solomon, the text speaks actually of king Solomon;
but wherever you find the king simply, it speaks of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Rabbis, however,
say: Wherever you find king Solomon, the reference is to the King whose is peace (shalom); wherever
Like Canticles Rabbah, the only extant Aramaic Targum to the Song exhibits particular
affinity with the interpretive traditions of the Palestinian amoraim, though here specific
rabbinical authorities are not cited and the expositionan expansive homiletical paraphrase of
the biblical textis considerably more sustained. In its received form, the work may date to the
eighth century or perhaps to the later half of the seventh.
132
The Targum elaborates the Songs
superscription as follows: Songs and praises which Solomon the prophet, the king of Israel,
spoke by the holy spirit from [before] the Lord of the whole world, Yahweh.
133
In a lengthy
supplement, the Song is then more specifically identified as the ninth in a series of ten poetic
compositions that celebrate epochal events in the history of the world and, especially, the Jewish
people.
134
Solomons sublime contribution is supposed to be the most comprehensive of these

you find the king simply, the reference is to the Community of Israel (Simon, 20). Cf. also the comment
attributed to R. Judah, in response to an interpretation of R. Meir (Cant. Rab. 1:12.1; 2:4.1): we do not
expound the Song of Songs in a bad sense but only in a good one, since the Song of Songs was composed
only for the praise of Israel (Simon, 77, 102103).
132
See n. 45 above for textual resources. Regarding issues of the compositions date and provenance,
and for an especially penetrating analysis of its literary structure and thematic content, see Loewe,
Apologetic Motifs,; cf. also the remarks of Pope, 93101 (together with his English translation of the
Aramaic text, included in the Notes to individual verses of the Song). German and French translations of
this Targum are provided respectively in the following studies: Wilhelm Riedel, Die Auslegung des
Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig: Deichert, 1898) 941; Paul
Vulliaud, Le Cantique des cantiques daprs la tradition juive (Paris: Universitaires de France, 1925) 67
103.
133

Tg. r has rm 1:1* (Sperber, Vol. 4a, 127):

.][
134
The following compositions are enumerated: 1) the Song for the Sabbath Day (Ps 92), attributed to
Adam; 2) the hymn song by Moses and the Israelites after their deliverance at the sea (Exod 15); 3) the
Song of the Well (Num 21:1718*); 4) the valedictory Song of Moses (Deut 32); 5) Joshuas chant at
the battle of Gibeon (Josh 10:12*); 6) the victory song of Barak and Deborah (Judg 5); 7) Hannahs song
of praise (1 Sam 2); 8) Davids song following his deliverance from Saul (2 Sam 22 = Ps 18); 9) the
Solomonic Song of Songs; 10) the song foretold by the prophet Isaiah, which Israel will sing at the time
of its ingathering from diaspora (Isa 20:29*). The songs in this list numbered 27 appear in identical
order in the discussion of ancient Israels ten songs preserved in the tannaitic Mekilta de Rabbi
Ishmael, Shirata 1.1586 (Lauterbach, Mekilta 2, 27). Similarly, songs 24, 6, and 8 in this enumeration
are found sequentially in Origens list of the five Israelite hymnic compositions antedating and excelled
by Solomons sublime Song; see n. 81 above. The possibility of relating such lists to Christian liturgical
scriptural poems, encompassing all five crucial epochs of Israels salvation-history. He reviewed,
first, the events of the nations formation, from, the exodus and revelation at Sinai through the
entry into Canaan (1:23:6*). Second, he portrayed the establishment of the Jerusalem Temple,

traditions of biblical odes or canticles is discussed by James L. Kugel, Is there but One Song? Bib 63
(1982) 329350.
*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
together with its attendant cultic rites and priestly offices, as the preeminent locus for the salvific
presence of God with Israel (3:75:1*). This is followed by Solomons vision of Israels sorry

*
7
8
night.
9
10
11
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
10
11
history of infidelity, culminating in the exile, and its subsequent repentance, inspired by
prophetical witnesses to Gods abiding compassion (5:26:1*). Solomon then foresaw the era of

*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
1
postexilic reconciliation between God and Israel, with the restoration of community and Temple
cultus (6:27:11[10]*). In the Songs concluding segment, Solomon envisioned the second age

*
2
My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to pasture his flock in the gardens, and
to gather lilies.
3
I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine; he pastures his flock among the lilies.
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
banners?
11
12
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
of exile, the diaspora that followed the Roman destruction of the Temple, and adumbrated the
grounds for continuing Israelite trust in Gods redemptive purposes (7:12[11]8:14*).
135

4
*
11
12
13
1
2
3
O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!
4
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!
5
6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10

11
12
13
135

A translation of the Targums rendering of the final two verses of the Song may serve to illustrate the
eschatological interest of the work, as well as the expository technique; italicized words indicate primary
loci in the Hebrew text upon which the Aramaic expansion is based: (8:13*) Solomon, the prophet, said
at the end of his prophecy: The Sovereign of the World is prepared to announce to the assembly of
Israel at the end of days: You, assembly of Israel, are like a small garden amidst the nations, seated
[dwelling] in the academy with members [friends] of the Sanhedrin and the rest of the people who are
listening to the president and learning from his mouth words of Torah. Let me hear the sound of your
words, when you sit (in judgment) to acquit and to declare guilty; I will approve everything that you do.
(8:14*) At that time, the elders of Israel shall say: Flee, my lover, Sovereign of the world, from this
impure earth; let your Shekinah dwell in heavens height. But when, in tribulation, we pray before you,
be like a gazelle, which sleeps with one eye closed and one eye open, or a young hind, which glances
behind when it runs away. Thus may you keep watch on us, taking note from heavens height of our
troubles and hardships, until the time that you take delight in us and redeem us and bring us up upon
the mountain of Jerusalem; there the priests will offer up before you incense of spices (editors tr.)
[(Sperber, Vol. 4a, 141)

Individual points of exposition which sustain this broad, five-part scenario are richly allegorical
and yet at the same time resolutely concrete, exhibiting no interest in the types of mystical
interpretation that thrived in medieval Christianity as well as in some Jewish circles.
136

The Targums view of the Song as an elaborate historical allegory, authored under
prophetical inspiration by Solomon, is supported by most of the well-known Jewish
commentators of the tenth through the twelfth centuries (notably Saadya [d. 942], Solomon ben
Isaac or Rashi [d. about 1105] and his grandson, Samuel ben Meir or Rashbam [d. about
1155]).
137
However, in addition to giving increasingly greater attention to philological issues,
individual expositors often differ from the Targum and one another in associating particular
events of Israels history with allusions discovered in the biblical text. Especially noteworthy is
the commentary on the Song authored by the versatile Sephardic poet and scholar Abraham ibn
Ezra (10891164).
138
In accord with the method outlined in his prefatory remarks, he offers a
threefold exposition of each verse. The first sections of exposition treat matters of vocabulary
and grammar. In the second sections he comments on the texts plain meaning (pa), which

136
Loewe (Apologetic Motifs, esp. 193195) argues that the Targumists interpretation, which
emphasized practical institutions that flow from the notion of Torah , was intended to repudiate
the Christian expository tradition initiated by Origen and represented especially in Theodorets
commentary, but also the extravagances to which esoteric circles in Jewry were pressing their
determination to read the praise by the maiden of her lovers physical charms as a description of the
mystical body of God.
137
For discussion of these and other medieval Jewish expositors, see especially Siegmund Salfeld, Das
Hohelied Salomos bei den jdischen Erklrern des Mittelalters (Berlin: Benzian, 1879); he lists (173177)
over a hundred such commentators between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.
138
His exposition figures prominently, alongside Rashis and the text of the Targum, in Rabbinic Bibles
published and often reprinted from the sixteenth century onward. Samples of Ibn Ezras treatment of
the Song can be found in the commentary of Ginsburg, 4446; cf. also Pope, 103104.
he understands to sketch an allegorical drama about a young woman who falls in love with a
shepherd. The third expository sections explicitly follow along the paths of the Midrash
[Rabbah]; here he explores figurative senses that reveal the Songs imagery to depict the history
of the covenantal relationship between Israel and God, from the call of Abraham through the
messianic age still to come.
Not all of the Jewish commentators of the later Middle Ages remained within the mainstream
of allegorical interpretation flowing from the Midrash Rabbah and Targum. The illustrious
scholar Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon or Rambam [11351204]) did not write a
commentary on the Song, but his elaborate and extraordinarily influential philosophical treatise,
Mreh nbkm, suggested that Solomons poetry portrayed the yearning of the individual
human soul or passive intellect to reunite with God, who was manifest in the active intellect
governing the created order.
139
This line of mystical or spiritualizing interpretation was
vigorously pursued in subsequent generations by Jewish expositors such as Moses ibn Tibbon (c.
1280), Joseph ibn Kaspi (12971340), and Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom/n or Ralbag [1288
1344]).
140
Another noteworthy departure from the mainstream tradition of Jewish interpretation
was inaugurated by Don Isaac Abrabanel (14371508) who, with a view reminiscent of the
discourse in Wisdom 69, understood the Song to celebrate the love between Solomon and his
sublime bride, personified Wisdom.
141

E. From the Reformation to the Modern Era
Although the Reformation of the sixteenth century, together with the revival of classical learning
associated with the European Renaissance, set in motion a revolution in the study of biblical
literature, the immediate impact on exegesis of the Song was relatively modest. From this time
onward, to be sure, Christian and Jewish interpreters alike began to exhibit greater sensitivity to
issues posed by the Hebrew text, and also to recover the Songs literal sense as the basis of

139
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, Vol. 2 (tr. Shlomo Pines; Chicago and London:
University of Chicago,
3
1974) 61836 [3.5154]. See also Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of
Maimonides (Misneh Torah) (Yale Judaica Series 22; New Haven and London: Yale University, 1980) 145;
and Georges Vajda, Lamour de Dieu dans la thologie juive du Moyen Age (tudes de philosophic
mdivale 46; Paris: Librairie philosophique [J. Vrin], 1957) 11840.
140
On the work of these commentators, see Ginsburg, 4657; Rowley, Interpretation, 200201; and
Vajda, Lamour, 141145, 179190, 245252. Cf. A. S. Halkin, Ibn Anins Commentary on the Song of
Songs, Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (ed. Saul Liebermann; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, 1950) 389424.
141
See Ginsburg, 58; Rowley, Interpretation, 209; and Vajda, LAmour, 288293. This view found a
wider public through the third of the philosophical Dialogues on Love authored by Isaac Abrabanels
eldest son, Judah (also called Leo Hebraeus); the work is available in English translation: Leone Ebreo,
The Philosophy of Love (Dialoghi dAmore) (tr. F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes; London: Soncino,
1937) especially 220225. In more recent times, similar views have been defended by Ernst Friedrich
Carl Rosenmller, Salomonis regis et sapientis quae perhibentur scripta, Vol. 2 (Scholia in Vetus
Testamentum 9/2; Leipzig, 1830) 270277; and Gottfried Kuhn, Erklrung des Hohen Liedes (Leipzig: A.
Deichert [Werner Scholl], 1926) esp. 6263.
their expository work. However, because this sense was still generally supposed to be conveyed
in figurative language, which required theological decipherment, allegorical and mystical
interpretations continued to thrive, even in the work of Protestant commentators who eschewed
the excesses of their exegetical predecessors.
142
While a broader range of new or non-traditional
exposition does begin to appear during the seventeenth century, it is not until the end of the
eighteenth centuryin the wake of the Enlightenmentthat significant trends can be discerned
toward the critical positions that hold sway in our own day.
Martin Luther is the only prominent figure among the early Protestant reformers to have left
a consecutive exposition of the Song. His Brief but Altogether Lucid Commentary on the Song
of Songs originated in a series of some twenty-four classroom lectures, delivered in Wittenburg
during the years 1530 and 1531.
143
If the work cannot be counted among Luthers most forceful
and influential exegetical efforts, it nonetheless offers insight into his hermeneutical travail.
144

He earnestly seeks to chart a new course of interpretation, one that acknowledges the historical
(i.e., Solomonic) setting of the biblical text but also yields a contemporary message. What
emerges has an innovative or idiosyncratic cast, though more often than not Luthers comments
on individual verses are conspicuously traditional.
At the beginning of his preface, Luther characterizes previous expositions of the Song as
both immature and strange and declares that his own intention is to get at the simplest
sense and the real character of this book.
145
The polemic is more pointed in the introductory
paragraphs to the commentary proper. Here Luther states that esoteric speculations, however
erudite, have only distorted the Song, whose fundamental purposein accord with the rest of
Scripturemust be to instruct us with doctrine useful for life, and secondly, with
consolations.
146
On such grounds he rejects as merely obscurantist the view that the Song
consists of amatory lyrics, composed by Solomon in connection with his marriage to the
daughter of Pharaoh.
147
Nor, he continues, is there utility in the positions of Jewish

142
See especially George L. Scheper, Reformation Attitudes towards Allegory and the Song of Songs,
PMLA 89 (1974) 551562; and also Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 337347. On Lathers indebtedness to
medieval traditions of exegesis, see James Samuel Preus, From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament
Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Harvard University [Belknap], 1969).
143
Georg Rrer, Luthers indefatigable scribe, was responsible for the transcriptions of these lectures,
though Luther himself supplied a preface for the extensively edited version published in 1539. The Latin
texts of both Rrers manuscript and the 1539 printed edition are accessible in WA 31/2, 586769. The
text of the printed edition is available in English translation: Ian Siggins, tr., Lectures on the Song of
Solomon, Luthers Works, Vol. 15 (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; Saint Louis: Concordia, 1972) 189264.
144
Cf. Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament (tr. Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1969) 1618 and esp. 8992.
145
LW 15, 191 (WA 31/2, 586).
146
LW 15, 195 (WA 31/2, 588589).
147
Rrers transcription attributes this view to Erasmus, who apparently revived the interpretation of
Theodore of Mopsuestia (WA 31/2, 589.6). On Erasmuss oblique questioning of the Songs canonical
commentators, who take the Song to portray the union of God and the synagog, or in those of
Christian tropologists, who identify the bride as the faithful human soul seeking to unite with
God.
148
To support his own approach, Luther then gives a new twist to the conventional
understanding of the three books attributed to Solomon. While Proverbs offers general
instruction to the Israelite populace, pertaining to the proper piety as well as to decorum in
domestic affairs, Ecclesiastes and the Song treat loftier matters of state. More specifically, the
Song is supposed to be a poetic encomium on the political order, in which Solomon celebrates
his own government as responsive to the love that God has bestowed upon it: In it he gives
thanks to God for that highest blessing, external peace. He does it as an example for other men,
so that they too may learn to give thanks to God in this way, to acknowledge His highest
benefits, and to pray for correction should anything reprehensible befall the realm.
149

Luthers consecutive exposition gives attention to the literal development and mood of the
text, but his explanation of the thematic content is consistently allegorical. Thus the Songs male
protagonist is a figure of God or the divine Word, whose chosen spouse is the populace of the
Solomonic kingdom. At least proleptically, however, the woman also represents the church,

significance, see the remarks of Shimon Markish, Erasmus and the Jews (tr. Anthony Olcott;
Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1986) 3840.
148
LW 15, 194 (WA 31/2, 589). Luther later makes caustic reference to the Marian interpretation, in his
remarks on 3:6*: This text has been made into a hymn concerning the blessed Virginobviously so that
there may nowhere be any lack of evidence by which to establish the incredible ignorance and blindness
of our adversaries! There is no reference here to the blessed Virgin. It is the Jewish kingdom as it existed
under Solomon which is described and commended in such elegant and poetic figures (LW 15, 225 [WA
31/2, 669670]).
149
LW 15, 195 (WA 31/2, 592). Luthers preface to the commentary more explicitly addresses the literary
character of the Song. In a fashion reminiscent of Origen and Cant. Rab. (see above, n. 134) Luther
compares Solomons poetry to other biblical odes which celebrate political events (e.g., the Song of Sea
in Exod 15) and deems it superior to them: This is why this poem is called the Song of Songs, since it
deals with matters of the loftiest and greatest kind, namely with the divinely ordained governments, or
with the people of God. It does not treat a story of an individual, as other songs in Holy Scripture do, but
an entire permanent kingdom, or people, in which God untiringly performs a host of staggering miracles
and displays His power by preserving and defending it against all the assaults of the devil and the world
(LW 15, 192 *WA 31/2, 587). He further suggests that Solomons use of love-lyrics to depict political
affairs has an analogy in the earlier sixteenth-century allegorical poem Teuerdank (The Dangers and
Adventures of the Famous Hero and Knight Sir Teuerdank) authored by Emperor Maximilian I about his
own quest for the hand of Mary of Burgundy: For this is the custom with kings and princes: they
compose amatory ballads, which the crowd takes to be songs about a bride or a sweetheart, when in
fact they portray the condition of their state and people with their songs (LW 15, 193 [WA 31/2, 587]).
faithfully wedded to Christ.
150
Luther even lapses on occasion into exposition that relates the
bride to the individual human soul. For example, the mans declaration of the womans beauty
in 6:4* provokes the comment that this is a great comfort for our conscience, because it
establishes with certainty that patience pleases God and that He takes delight in the sacrifice of a
contrite, but not of a despairing heart, so that even though the flesh takes offense and murmurs
somewhat, yet the spirit cries out to God and would rather remain in perpetual trial and even
perish than withdraw from God into ungodliness.
151
An echo of Bernard of Clairvaux seems to
resound in Luthers remarks on 8:6: The words translated and of flames in the Hebrew are
literally the flame of God. He [Solomon] is indicating the inexhaustible and infinite ardor of a
love that cannot be extinguished. For love yields to no one, and everything yields to love.
152

If Luthers break with traditional views thus appears to be less than decisive, perhaps we should
be heartened by his concluding remarks: In this way I understand the book to be about
Solomons state. If I am wrong about this, a first effort deserves lenience. The musings of others
have a much larger share of absurdity!
153

Despite Luthers call for a new approach, the Genevan wing of the Reformation defended the
conventional view of medieval exegesis that the Song was poetic prophecy of the marriage
between Christ and the church. This position is adumbrated already in John Calvins letter of
1544, reporting on the breach with his young associate, Sebastian Castellion, who had apparently
argued that the Song was a profane and even lascivious work, of dubious canonical value.
154

That Calvin held an ecclesiological view of the Songs significance may also be inferred from
his exposition of Psalm 45.
155
This interpretation came to fuller expression in the influential
homilies on the first three chapters of the Song, authored by Thodore de Bze, Calvins

150
Note, e.g., Luthers remarks on 1:5* (LW 15, 200201 [WA 31/2, 611) and esp. 8:910*, where the
references to a wall are taken to mean the church, fortified against heretical doctrine (LW 15, 260261
[WA 31/2, 762764]).
151
LW 15, 243 (WA 31/2, 721722).
152
LW 15, 258 (WA 31/2, 759).
153
LW 15, 264 (WA 31/2, 769).
154
For the Latin text of the letter or certificate of dismissal, which Calvin wrote on behalf of the Genevan
clergy, see A.-L. Herminjard, Correspondance des Rformateurs dans les pays de langue franaise.
Recueillie et publie avec dautres lettres relatives la Reforme et des notes historiques et
bibliographiques, Vol. 9 (Genve/Bale/Lyon: Georg & Cie, 1897 [reprinted Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf,
1966]) 156160. Cf. Ferdinand Buisson, Sbastien Castellion, sa vie et son oeuvre (15151563): tude
sur les origines du protestantisme libral franais, Vol. 1 (Paris: Hachette, 1892 [reprinted Nieuwkoop: B.
de Graaf, 1964]) 193221, and esp. 19899 for a French translation of the certificate.
155
John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Vol. 2 (tr. James Anderson; Edinburgh: Calvin
Translation Society, 1846) 173194, esp. 173: the subject here treated of is not some obscene or
unchaste amours, but that, under what is here said of Solomon as a type, the holy and divine union of
Christ and his Church is described and set forth.
successor at Geneva.
156
During the seventeenth century, the Genevan position developed in
baroque fashion, yielding expositions that supposed the Song to offer a minutely detailed
prophetic allegory of the churchs history that culminated in the triumph of evangelical
Protestantism over papal Christianity. Noteworthy in this regard are the commentaries of the
Puritan divines, Thomas Brightman
157
and John Cotton.
158
In Germany, a similar position was
grandly sketched in the commentary of Johannes Coccejus, the renowned federalist
theologian.
159

The first generations of Protestant exposition generally adhered to an ecclesial-historical
reading of the Song, and viewed with suspicion or outright hostility interpretations that identified
the bride with either the individual human soul or the Virgin Mary. In Roman Catholic circles,
on the other hand, the broader scope of medieval Christian interpretation found continuing favor
through the sixteenth century and beyond. For example, the ecclesial view received strong
scholarly affirmation in the commentaries of Clarius, Bishop of Foligno,
160
and Gilbert

156
Thodore de Bze, Sermons sur les trois premiers chapitres du Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon
(Fleuron, 1586) = Master Bezaes Sermons upon the Three First Chapters of the Canticle of Canticles (tr.
John Harmer; Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1587).
157
Thomas Brightman, Scholia et analysis in Canticum canticorum (Basel, 1614). A revised and abridged
English translation was published later: A Commentary on the Canticles, or the Song of Salomon.
Wherein the Text is Analised, the Native signification of the Words Declared, The Allegories Explained,
and the Order of times whereunto they relate Observed in The Workes of that Famous Reverend, and
Learned Divine, Mr. Tho. Brightman (London, 1644). Ginsburg calls Brightmans analysis the fullest
development of the Chaldee *i.e., targumic+ interpretation Christianized and provides an extensive
summary (7174).
158
John Cotton, Explicatio Cantici Canticorum (London, 1642), an English translation of which remained
in print well into the nineteenth century: A Brief Exposition of the Whole Book of Canticles, or, Song of
Solomon (London, 1648; Edinburgh: James Nichol *Nichols Series of Commentaries+, 1868). By and
large, Cottons exposition seems to be an abbreviated paraphrase of Brightmans, though the
indebtedness is unacknowledged.
159
Johannes Coccejus, Cogitationes de Cantico Canticorum Salomonis ut Icone regni Christi
(Amsterdam, 1665; reprinted in Opera omnia theologica, exegetica, didactica, polemica, philologica,
Vol. 2: Commentarius in Librum Ijobi, Psalmos, Proverbia, Ecclesiasten et Canticum Canticorum
[Amsterdam: P. & J. Blaev,
3
1701] 565623). For the hermeneutics of Coccejus and his relationship to
evangelical Pietism, see Heiner Faulenbach, Weg und Ziel der Erkenntnis Christi: Eine Untersuchung zur
Thelogie des Johannes Coccejus (Beitrge zur Geschichte und Lehre der Reformierten Kirche 36;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1973) esp. 4588.
160
Clairus, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis, ad hebraicam veritatem nunc demum emendatum, adjectis
scholiis ex arcanis hebraeorum erutis, quae tamen im primis Christi et Ecclesiae misteria breviter
explicant (Venice, 1544).
Genebrard (Genebrardus).
161
These efforts are also notable for the close attention they paid to the
Hebrew text, as well as for their extensive reference to the work of medieval Jewish
commentators. A variation on the ecclesial interpretation was presented in the commentary of
Michael Ghislerius (Pope Pius V), which exposited the Song as an allegorical drama of the
Incarnation, emphasizing the Marian identity of the bride.
162
The later sixteenth-century
reflections on the Song authored by the Spanish Carmelite mystics St. Teresa of Avila
(Conceptos del Amor de Dios sobre algunas Palabras de los Cantares) and St. John of the Cross
(especially his Cantico Espiritual) well represent the tradition of the spiritual marriage of the
individual soul with Christ,
163
unlike the commentary of Fray Luis de Leon.
164
Mention should
also be made of the widely promulgated commentary of Cornelius Lapide, which in defense of
coherent Catholic orthodoxy endeavored to synthesize these several lines of traditional
interpretation.
165

While the sixteenth-century expositions of the Song muted the hermeneutical voice of
Erasmus,
166
his plea for exegesis, firmly grounded in the grammaticalhistorical plain sense of
the biblical text, began to resound in the work of seventeenth-century commentators. Erasmuss
influence can apparently be detected in the widespread revival of the notion, articulated by
Theodore of Mopsuestia in late antiquity, that at least on the literal level the Song celebrated the

161
Gilbert Genebrard, Observationes in Canticum Canticorum (Paris, 1579). A critique of Thodore de
Bzes rendering of the biblical text was included in the second edition: Canticum Canticorum versibus
jambicis et Commentariis explicatum, adversus trochaicam Theod. Bezae paraphrasin (Paris, 1585).
162
Michael Ghislerius, Canticum canticorum Salomonis, juxta lectiones Vulgatam, Ebraeam et Graecas,
tum Septuaginta, tum aliorum interpretum (Rome, 1609; Venice, 1613). On the longer history of this
theological tradition, see the citations in n. 104 above and also the following: Johannes Beumer, Die
marianische Deutung des Hohen Liedes in der Frhscholastik, ZKT 76 (1954) 41439; and Nicolas James
Perella, The Kiss Sacred and Profane: An Interpretative History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-
Erotic Themes (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California, 1969) 7073.
163
For English translations of these works, with introductory comments, see the following: E. Allison
Peers, tr. and ed., The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Vol. 2 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946)
352399 *Conceptions of the Love of God+; Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trs., The Collected
Works of St. John of the Cross (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964) 393565 *The Spiritual Canticle+ and
note also 569649 *The Living Flame of Love+. On the perseverance of this interpretative tradition, cf.
Paschal P. Parente, The Canticle of Canticles in Mystical Theology, CBQ 6 (1944) 142158.
164
Luis de Leon, In canticum Canticorum Solomonis explanatio (Salamanca, 1580), with a Spanish edition
now accessible: El Cantar de los Cantares (ed. Jorge Guillen; Salamanca: Sigueme, 1980).
165
Cornelius Lapide, Commentarii in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 4 (Antwerp. 1657; Lyon/Paris, 1875) 357
750 [In Canticum Canticorum]. On the character and significance of this work, see the remarks in
Robert, 4647.
166
Cf. Basil Hall, Biblical Scholarship: Editions and Commentaries, CHB 3, 8283.
marriage of Solomon to an Egyptian princess.
167
Before mid-century, a brief but resolute analysis
of the Song as comprised of profane love-poetry was presented by Hugo Grotius, a Dutch
layman, whose pioneering approach called specific attention to parallels in Hellenistic literature,
particularly the erotic Idyls of Theocritus.
168
At the end of the century, Bishop Bossuets
influential commentary sought to explain the Songs literary construction and literal sense on the
basis of a hypothetical Solomonic nuptial liturgy.
169
Bossuet discerned a seven-part structure in
the poetic text (1:12:6*; 2:717*; 3:15:1*; 5:26:9*; 6:107:11[10]*; 7:12[11]8:3*; and 8:4

167
See above, n. 147. For broader reviews of this line of interpretation, and pertinent bibliographical
data through the eighteenth century, the following may usefully be consulted: Paul Joon, Le Cantique
des Cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exgtique (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne,
2
1909) esp. 4548;
Giuseppe Ricciotti, Il Cantico dei Cantici: Versione critica dal testo ebraico con introduzione e commento
(Torino: Societ editrice internazionale, 1928) esp. 5457. It should be observed, however, that the label
naturalistic as applied to the views of Grotius, Herder, and other critics is defensive (of allegorical
readings) and at least potentially misleading as regards the hermeneutical sensitivities of the critics
themselves.
168
Hugo Grotius, Ad Canticum Canticorum, Annotationes ad Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 1 (ed. G. I. L.
Vogel; Halle, 1644) 449454.
169
Jacques Bnigne Bossuet, In Canticum Canticorum, Libri Salomonis (Paris, 1693); reprinted in
Oeuvres compltes de Bossuet, Vol. 3. (Paris, 1863) 412428. Consideration of the Songs literal character
in the light of ancient Hebrew and Jewish marriage rites had earlier been suggested by Caspar Sanctius
(Sanchez), Commentarius in Canticum canticorum (Lyon, 1616).
*
1
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7

8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
*
7
until it is ready!
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
15

16
17
cleft mountains.
*
1
2
3
4
5
until it is ready!
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
1
2
3

4
of warriors.
5
*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16

1
*
10
banners?
11
12
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7
8
9
*
14*), each segment of which represented a day of the presumed week-long Hebrew wedding
festival but also, on the typological or parabolic level of meaning, a stage of the souls
advancement in spiritual marriage with its divine sovereign.

10
11
12
13
1
2
3
*
4
5
6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
Robert Lowth, who later became the Anglican Lord Bishop of London, contributed to the
transition that occurred in the history of the Songs interpretation during the eighteenth
century.
170
Drawing upon the work of earlier commentators, especially Bossuet, Lowths learned
and elegantly restrained discussion focused attention on the Songs literary genre, stylistic
character, and bucolic themes, all in light of classical Greek and Roman sources. In effect, Lowth
reestablished Origens view that the text could be understood as a lesser drama (i.e., non-
theatrical and lacking coherent plot) comprised of loosely structured poetical dialogues and
lyrical soliloquies. Although Lowth presented a cogent critique of allegorical and prophetical-
historical extravagance, he nonetheless continued to affirm that the Song had parabolic
significance as a portrait of the mutual love between Christ and the church.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century issues that have shaped the primary agenda of
modern criticalhistorical study of the Song began to emerge. Johann Friedrich Jacobi inaugurated
the quest for a full-scale dramatic interpretation, positing a plot that centered on the ultimately
futile efforts of tyrannical king Solomon to compete with a humble shepherd for the hand of the
beautiful Shulammite maiden.
171
Detailed versions of this theory were presented and
vigorously debated by prominent commentators during the nineteenth century especially, until
lack of consensus among the advocates and the sheer weight of their speculative ingenuity
caused the enterprise to founder and fade.
172
A more enduring contribution to subsequent

12
13
14
170
Robert Lowth, De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Praelectiones (London, 1753). The English translation
incorporated notes of Johann David Michaelis, among others, which give some indication of the impact
of Lowths work on continental European as well as British scholarship: Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of
the Hebrews, Vol. 2 (tr. G. Gregory; London: J. Johnson, 1787) 287344 [Lectures 3031].
171
The fullsome title of Jacobis work suggests both his approach and the moral of the story he
reconstructs: Das durch eine leichte und ungeknstelte Erklrung von seinen Vorwrfen gerettete Hohe
Lied; nebst einem Beweise, dass selbiges fr die Zeiten Salomons und eines Nachfolger sehr lehrreich
und heilsam, und eines heiligen Dichters wrdig gewesen (Celle, 1772).
172
Jacobis three-character reading was popularized a generation later by Heinrich Georg Augustus
Ewald, Das Hohe Lied Salomos bersetzt und mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen und einem Anhang
(Gttingen, 1826); variations on the theory were subsequently defended by, e.g., Ferdinand Hitzig, Das
Hohe Lied (KEH 16; Leipzig, 1855); Otto Zckler, Das Hohelied (Theologische-homiletische Bibelwerk 13;
Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1868 [= The Song of Solomon (tr. W. H. Green; New York: Charles Scribner, 1870)]); and
Charles Bruston, La Sulammite, mlodrame en cinq actes et en vers, traduit de lhbreu avec des notes
explicatives et un introduction sur le sens et la date du Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Fischbacher, 1891).
It may be noted that at least some proponents of the dramatic interpretation supposed the plot to
scholarship was made by Herder, the celebrated German philosopher and poet, whose vivid
translation and poignant literary criticism brought the spirit of the Enlightenment to bear upon
interpretation of the Song.
173
Herders analysis of the biblical work as a collection of pleasingly
erotic love-poetry sounded the keynote that a host of commentators were to elaborate throughout
the nineteenth century,
174
shaping what has become the prevailing viewpoint among
contemporary critics.
The literary theory of Bossuet, Lowth, and, ultimately, Origenthat the Song is a structured
epithalamium or collection of lyrical poetry related to ancient Hebrew marriage ritesgained
surprising new affirmation during the final decades of the nineteenth century. Primary impetus
for further development of this view came from J. G. Wetzsteins study of modern Syrian
wedding customs.
175
Among the village nuptial practices that Wetzstein suggested had pertinent
parallels in the Song were a seven-day cycle of festivities, in which the espoused couple was
honored as royalty; extravagant praising of the physical charms of bride and groom (the Arabic
waf); and even, performance by the bride of a curiously war-like sword dance. Favorable
attention was given to Wetzsteins suggestions in the second edition of Delitzschs
commentary,
176
but Karl Budde developed the theory in its most influential form.
177

reflect real history (Ginsburg, 11); Franz Delitzsch (Das Hohelied untersucht und ausgelegt [Leipzig,
1851]) maintained that the work was most likely of Solomonic provenance. Among the latest critics to
attempt defenses of the dramatic theory are Leroy Waterman, The Song of Songs, Translated and
Interpreted as a Dramatic Poem (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1948), and Alberto Vaccari, La
Cantica, I Libri Poetici (La Sacra Bibbia 5/2; Firenze: Salani, 1950) 111129.
173
Johann Gottfried von Herder, Lieder der Liebe: Die ltesten und schnsten aus dem Morgenlande
(Leipzig, 1778 [reprinted: J. G. von Herders sammtliche Werke, Vol. 39 (ed. J. C. Muller; Carlsruhe, 1828)
1156]).
174
E.g., Johann Christian Carl Dpke, Philologischkritischer Commentar zum Hohen Lied Salomos
(Leipzig, 1829); Heinrich Hirsch Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim oder das Salomonische Hohelied (Wien, 1871;
Breslau: W. Jacobson,
2
1885); and Eduard Reuss, Das Alte Testament bersetzt, eingeleitet und erlutert,
Vol. 5: Die hebrische Poesie (Braunschweig, 1893) 315394.
175
J. G. Wetzstein, Die syrische Dreschtafel, Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie 5 (1873) 270302.
Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes (tr. M. G. Easton; CFTL
4/54; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891.
176
Franz Delitzsch, Hoheslied und Koheleth (BC 4/5; Leipzig, 1875) = Commentary on the Song of Songs
and Ecclesiastes (tr. M. G. Easton; CFTL 4/54; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891) 162176 *Appendix.
Remarks on the Song by Dr. J. G. Wetzstein+.
Budde Karl Budde, Das Hohelied erklrt in Karl Budde, Alfred Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die fnf
While critical support for views of the Song as either a pastoral drama or a cycle of secular
wedding-poetry waned during the first half of the present century,
178
both of these theories
along with traditional allegorycontributed some of their central hypotheses to the mythological
and cultic interpretations that continue to find advocacy. Attempts to discern the Songs
provenance in myths and rites of divine marriage were specifically occasioned, however, by the
recovery and comparative study of ancient Near Eastern lore. A passing venture in this direction
was made by Neuschotz de Jassy, who maintained that the Song originated in Alexandria during
the Ptolemaic period and was essentially a Hebrew translation of an Egyptian liturgy that
celebrated the nuptials of the deities Osiris (= Solomon) and Isis (= the Shulammite).
179
Early
studies by T. J. Meek, drawing upon cuneiform sources for support, had a considerably greater
impact on biblical scholarship.
180
Meek argued that both the Song and Psalm 45 preserve literary
fragments of an ancient Canaanite fertility-cult liturgy, which had been adapted by Israelites for
use in the worship of Yahweh and his consort, a vegetarian goddess. According to this view, the
Songs male protagonist was originally the Canaanite deity Adad (still represented in the
Hebrew text by the epithet dd [my lover] and a supposed counterpart of Adonis and
Mesopotamian Tammuz), while the Shulammite (Shulmanitu/Shala) was a local Palestinian
epithet of Ishtar.
Neither the substance of Meeks reconstruction nor the philological and religio-historical
details mustered to support it escaped trenchant critique.
181
Yet his theory attracted a substantial

177
Karl Budde, Was ist das Hohelied? Preussische Jahrbcher 78 (1894) 92117; and Das Hohelied
erklrt in Karl Budde, Alfred Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die fnf Megillot (KHC 6;
Freiburg/Leipzig/Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1898) IX48. Cf. also Carl Siegfried, Hoheslied
in Wilhelm Frankenberg and Carl Siegfried, Die Sprche, Prediger und Hoheslied bersetzt und erklrt
(HR 2/3; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1898) 78126.
178
See, e.g., the critique of these views offered by Andrew Harper, The Song of Solomon, with
Introduction and Notes (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1902,
2
1907); and also Rowley, 214215 and 219221.
179
Oswald Neuschotz de Jassy, Le Cantique des Cantiques et le mythe dOsiris-Hetep (Paris: C. Reinwald,
1914). Cf. the withering critical response from Joseph Halvy, Le Cantique des cantiques et le mythe
dOsiris-Hetep, Revue smitique 14 (1922) 248255.
180
Theophile J. Meek, Canticles and the Tammuz Cult, AJSL 39 (192223) 114; Babylonian Parallels
to the Song of Songs, JBL 43 (1924) 245252; and, for the clearest presentation of his seminal views,
The Song of Songs and the Fertility Cult, The Song of Songs: A Symposium (ed. W. H. Schoff;
Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 4869.
Meek Theophile J. Meek, The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegesis in George Arthur Buttrick et al.
181
See esp. Nathaniel Schmidt, Is Canticles an Adonis Litany? JAOS 46 (1926) 154164; Ricciotti, 116
120; and Rowley, 223242. Cf. more recently Edwin M. Yamauchi, Tammuz and the Bible, JBL (1965)
283290; and G. Lloyd Carr, Is the Song of Songs a Sacred Marriage Drama? JETS 22 (1979) 103114.
following among cuneiformists and biblical scholars alike, in large measure because it seemed to
explain diverse features of the Songs themes and hyperbolic language and also to draw early
Israels cult more tightly into the orbit of other ancient Near Eastern religious traditions and
practices.
182
Since mid-century, however, principal advocatesincluding Meek himselfhave
tended to distance the Songs poetry from the actual cultic celebration of a sacred marriage or
the like.
183
Perhaps the theory survives only as a malleable hypothesis regarding the Songs
inchoate antecedents.
184

Any broad agreement among contemporary critical scholars that the literal text of the Song
marvelously portrays the passions and yearnings of human lovers is a recent phenomenon.
Among Roman Catholic scholars, particularly, the traditional lines of interpretation
predominated well into the present century, buttressed by sophisticated arguments regarding the
Songs parabolic character,
185
prophetic spirit,
186
and anthological style.
187
But it seems

182
Commentaries which developed early versions of the theory include the following: Wilhelm
Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung
[Heinz Lefaire], 1926); W. O. E. Oesterley, The Song of Songs: The Authorized Version together with a
New Translation, an Introduction and Notes (London: Golden Cockerel, 1936); and Max Haller, Das
Hohe Lied in Max Haller and Kurt Galling, Dir fnf Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck), 2146.
183
Meek, esp. 9498; Hartmut Schmkel, Die kultischen Deutung des Hoheliedes, ZAW 64 (1956) 148
155; and Helmer Ringgren, Das Hohe Lied in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied,
Klagelieder, Das Buch Esther: bersetzt und erklrt (ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1958) 137. Cf. also Helmer Ringgren, Hohes Lied und hieros Gamos, ZAW 65 (1953) 300302; and,
recently, The Marriage Motif in Israelite Religion, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank
Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 421428.
184
Cf. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient
Sumer (Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1969) 85106; and Pope, 210229.
185
So, e.g., Denis Buzy, Le Cantique des Cantiques. Exgse allgorique ou parabolique? RSR 39 (1951)
99114; and also the following important commentaries: Athanasius Miller, Das Hohe Lied bersetzt
und erklrt (HS 6/3; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1927); Augustinus Bea, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis quod
hebraice dicitur r Harm (SPIB 104; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1953). Cf. the response to
these and similar viewpoints in Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ
16 (1954) 111.
186
E.g., among earlier commentators this century, Joon, 920; and Ricciotti, 121157. Cf. still Andr
Feuillet, Le drame damour du Cantique des cantiques remis en son contexte prophtique, Nova et
Vetera 62 (1987) 81127; 63 (1988) 81136.
187
This viewpoint is especially associated with the seminal work of Andr Robert, which has been
elaborated by Raymond Jacques Tournay and Andr Feuillet. See the lucid summary of the approach
given by Tournay in the preface to Robert, 1025 (and also the bibliography of Roberts studies, 3132).
For Tournays own final position, consult his Quand Dieu parle aux hommes le langage de lamour.
clear that the tide has also turned in Catholic exegesis toward a fuller appreciation of the Songs
literal sense.
188

As suggested at the outset of this review, shifting views in the history of the interpretation of
the Song, and of the Bible generally, tell the story of new generations becoming aware of the
hermeneutical limitations of their predecessors. Hence it would be foolish to suppose that our
methodology has resolved, once and for all, the issues of the Songs meaning that baffled our
precritical forebears. Our cultural presuppositions, like theirs, and the extent of our exegetical
progress, if any, will be scrutinized by the next generation of faithful interpreters.
4. Literature of Love: Ancient Near Eastern Texts
1

Study of the Songs language, structure, and themes in light of non-canonical literary sources is
the single most important factor in discerning the ascension of the modern critical views
sketched above. Interestingly, Erasmus laid the groundwork for a comparative approach by
challenging the pretense of Renaissance humanism, namely, that in the newly recovered classics
of Greek and Roman antiquity existed a cultural heritage superior to that of the Bible.
189
His
apparent aesthetic preference for the Song over the bucolic poetry of Theocritus suggested the
agenda that was to be pursued by Hugo Grotius a century later, and subsequently by such notable

tudes sur le Cantique des cantiques (CRB 21; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982). Cf. also Andr Feuillet, Le
Cantique des Cantiques: tude de thologie biblique et rflexions sur une mthode d exgse (LD 10;
Paris: Cerf, 1953)esp. 2037.
188
E.g., Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des cantiques, RB 61 (1954) 6786;
Oswald Loretz, Zum Problem des Eros im Hohenlied, BZ N.F. 8 (1964) 191216; and Leo Krinetzki,
Retractiones zu frheren Arbeiten uber das Hohelied, Bib 52 (1971) 176189.
1
Murphy, Roland Edmund ; McBride, S. Dean: The Song of Songs : A Commentary on the Book of
Canticles or the Song of Songs. Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 1990 (Hermeneia--a Critical and Historical
Commentary on the Bible), i
189
The pertinent passage in Erasmuss The Ciceronian: A Dialogue on the Ideal Latin Style merits
quotation: Do we find Solomon repellent compared with Socrates? Our words light up if we throw in
some line from Pindar or Horace, are dull and mean if we weave in an apt quotation from the Psalms.
Weight and dignity are added if we insert some pronouncement of Platos, but the moment we add one
of Christs sayings from the Gospels the passage ceases to please. Whats the reason for this
preposterous opinion?Take history. If the author is not to be trusted, it doesnt deserve even the name
of history. So just compare, if you please, Herodotus, that teller of tales, with Moses; compare the
account of the creation of the world and the departure from Egypt with the fables of Diodorus; compare
the books of Judges and Kings with Livy, who doesnt even write a consistent account of Romes exploits,
let alone a true one; compare Plato with Christ, Socrates irony with Christs heavenly
pronouncements; compare the Psalms, breathing nothing of man, with Pindars flatteries: compare the
*S+ong of Solomon with Theocritus trifles. Whether you consider the authors or their subjects, there is
no point of comparison. The divine wisdom has its own special eloquence (tr. Betty I. Knott; Collected
Works of Erasmus, Vol. 28 [ed. A. H. T. Levi; Toronto/Buffalo/London: University of Toronto, 1986] 393).
scholars as Robert Lowth, Johann David Michaelis, Johann Gottfried von Herder, and Heinrich
Graetz.
190
Similarly, alleged parallels between the Song and Arabic love poetry and nuptial
customs sparked the efforts of Karl Budde and others in the late nineteenth century to interpret
the Song as a cycle of ancient Hebrew wedding songs.
191
Although the base of comparison has
continued to broaden during the present century,
192
the rediscovered legacy of ancient Egyptian
and Mesopotamian love-literature is of most direct pertinence to contemporary critical discussion
of the Songs literary character and socio-historical provenance. In general, cuneiform parallels
have fueled theories of the Songs indebtedness to ancient fertility rites of sacred marriage, while
critics who interpret the Song as a celebration of human sexual love stress the import of Egyptian
material. A brief review of the primary evidence and issues must suffice.
A. Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry
Adolf Erman was among the first scholars to notice a close resemblance between the biblical
Song of Songs and collections of Egyptian love poetry surviving from the period of the New
Kingdom.
193
In his judgment, marked similarities of mood in the respective sources and
correlation of specific literary topoisuch as the frequent use of sister with reference to the
female lovercould best be accounted for by positing the introduction of a well-developed
Egyptian lyric tradition into Canaan during the early Iron Age (c. 1100 B.C.E.).
194
Ostensibly,

Robert Andr Robert; and Raymond Tournay, with Andr Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques: traduction
et commentaire (tB; Paris: Libraire Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1963).
190
See above, nn. 168, 170, 17374.
191
See above, n. 177; and also Ernest Renan, Le Cantique des Cantiques, traduit de lhbreu avec une
tude sur le plan, lge et le caractre du pome (Paris, 1860) 86.
192
E.g., Stephen H. Stephan, Modern Palestinian Parallels to the Song of Songs, JPOS 2 (1922) 199
227; Franz Dornseiff, gyptische Liebeslieder, Hohes Lied, Sappho, Theokrit, ZDMG 90 (1936) 588
601; and M. Shashar, Song of Songs and Bedouin Love Poetry *Hebrew+ BMik 31 (198586) 36070.
Tournay has provided an extensive overview of comparable data in various Mediterranean and Near
Eastern cultures (in Robert, 337426 *Les paralleles non bibliques+). See also Pope, 5489 and passim.
193
Adolf Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (tr. Aylward M. Blackman; London: Methuen,
1927 [= Die Literatur der Aegypter (Leipzig, 1923)]; reprinted as The Ancient Egyptians: A Sourcebook of
their Writings [New York: Harper & Row, 1966]) 24243. On other contributors to the early discussion,
see John Bradley White, A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian
Poetry (SBLDS 38; Missoula: Scholars, 1978) 6768.
194
In support of this view, Erman refers to the minstrel, an Egyptian woman attached to the royal court
in Byblos, who briefly appears in the story of Wen-Amons sea-faring expedition to Phoenicia. During the
final anxious day before Wen-Amons return voyage to Egypt, the prince of Byblos sent to him Ta-net-
Not, an Egyptian singer who was with him, saying: Sing to him! Dont let his heart take on cares! (John
then, ancient Israel became heir to this Egyptian or Egyptianizing tradition of love poetry,
mediated through the Canaanites, during the premonarchical period of its social formation.
An elaborate case for more direct but discrete influence of Egyptian literary and plastic arts
on the composition of the Song has been championed by Gerleman.
195
In his view, the biblical
Song cannot be considered the product of popular Israelite culture (Volkspoesie or the like) as
already Herder had supposed.
196
Instead, its portrait of human love is drawn with a sophisticated
allusiveness, an artful style (Kunstdichtung), and a concrete pictoral sensitivity that betray close
familiarity with an Egyptian cultural environment. Such urbane traditions, Gerleman suggests,
could most likely have come into fashion among an Israelite courtly aristocracy during the period
of the Solomonic Enlightenment (Aufklrung).
197
But this reconstruction, more so than
Ermans, is built on too many intangibles. Given Egypts well-documented political and cultural
hegemony in Syria-Palestine throughout the Late Bronze Age and its continuing involvement
thereafter, it is neither possible nor necessary to identify a particular time and channel for
transmission of Egyptian traditions whose influence may be detected in the Song.
198
In any
event, the dependence of the Song upon extant Egyptian sources is much less immediate than the
probable connection between the Instruction of Amenemope and Prov 22:17*23:11*. If

A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 28). Additional support is contributed by the hieroglyphic inscription on one of the
Megiddo Ivories (c. early twelfth century B.C.E.), which mentions an Egyptian female minstrel, the
Singer of Ptah (John A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 263; see also 246 and n. 30).
195
Gerleman, 5272; and Gerleman, Die Bildersprache des Hohenliedes und der altgyptische Kunst,
ASTI 1 (1962) 2430. While Gerlemans argument that the wafs of Song reflect the particular forms and
colors of Egyptian statuary does not carry conviction, the value of Egyptian and other ancient Near
Eastern art for illustration of many of the Songs images and themes is quite graphically displayed in the
recent commentary of Othmar Keel: Das Hohelied (ZBAT 18; Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1986); see
also Othmar Keel, Deine Blicke sind Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes (SBS 11415; Stuttgart:
196
Gerleman, 5253, who contrasts his own position to the view more recently supported by Wilhelm
Rudolph: Das Hohe Lied im Kanon, ZAW 59 (194243) 18999; cf. Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth,
Das Hohe Lied, Die Klagelieder (KAT 17/13; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus [Gerd Mohn], 1962)
esp. 107108.
197
Gerleman, 7172; see above, p. 4 and n. 6.
198
For a general review of the evidence, see Ronald J. Williams, gypten und Israel, Theologische
Realenzyklopdie, Band 1/4 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977) 492505; and cf. Fox (19193)
for specific comments on possible channels of transmission.
*
17
The words of the wise: Incline your ear and hear my words,and apply your mind to my teaching;
questions of date and dependency should be set aside, what remains of great value is the light
that the Egyptian poetry shedsby way of contrast as well as literary affinityon the form and
thematic content of the biblical Song.
Primary Sources. Alfred Hermanns important study of the Egyptian love songs enumerated
forty-seven separate works or poetic units in four major collections dating from the Ramesside
period (19th to 20th dynasties, c. 13001100 B.C.E.).
199
His numbering remains useful for
reference purposes and will be indicated below, though Michael V. Foxs recent analysis has
strengthened the case for considering many of the individual items to be stanzas of larger
compositions.
200

The most extensive and best preserved of the four major collections consists of three sections
or cycles of love poetry that are included in the literary anthology of the Chester Beatty Papyrus
I, a 20th dynasty manuscript.
201
The first cycle (Hermann, nos. 3137), on the verso of the
papyrus, bears the heading The Beginning of the Songs of Extreme Happiness.
202
It is

*
11
for their redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.
199
Alfred Hermann, Altgyptische Liebesdichtung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959) esp. 48; the
texts numbered 4855 in Hermanns scheme are fragmentary and supplemental. A full, consecutive
English translation of the units numbered 147 is conveniently provided by William Kelly Simpson (ed.),
The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry (New Haven/London:
Yale University, 1972) 296325 *The Love Songs and The Song of the Harper, tr. William Kelly
Simpson]. Selections from the major sources are translated by John A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 46769; and
(Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 1976) 18193. Still valuable are the translations,
notes, and discussion of Siegfried Schott, Altgyptische Liebeslieder (Zrich: Artemis, 1950) = Les chants
damour de lgypte ancienne (tr. Paul Krieger; Lorient ancien illustr; Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1956).
Fox Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1985).
200
Fox, 56 and esp. 195202.
201
Text and studies: Alan H. Gardiner, The Library of A. Chester Beatty: Descriptions of a Hieratic Papyrus
with a Mythological Story, Love Songs, and Other Miscellaneous Texts. The Chester Beatty Papyri, No 1
(London: Oxford University, 1931) 2738 and pls. 1617, 2226, 2930; mile Suys, Les chants damour
du papyrus Chester Beatty I, Bib 13 (1932) 20927; White, Study, esp. 17785; Fox, 5177 [translation
and notes], 393404 [hieroglyphic text].
202
So rendered by Simpson, Literature, 315. Cf., however, Fox (52, 5556), who follows Siegfried Schott
in understanding the end of the rubric to attribute the songs or sayings in question to the Great
comprised of seven expressly numbered stanzas that are tightly framed by paronomasia and
repetitions; male and female lovers alternate in speaking, but they do not address one another in
a dialogue. The second cycle (nos. 3840), also on the verso, consists of three stanzas, in each of
which a woman expresses desire repetitively for her absent lover to come to her with utmost
hastelike the kings steed, for example, and like a gazelle running in the desert.
203
The
third section (nos. 4147), on the recto, is known on the basis of its superscription as the
pleasant sayings of Nakht-Sobek, the scribe who apparently authored this poetry or copied it
from other sources.
204
The text, while difficult to interpret, seems to consist of two or more
independent poems, rather than a single coherent cycle of stanzas; perspectives of both male and
female lovers are variously represented.
The Papyrus Harris 500 is an early 19th dynasty manuscript (thirteenth century B.C.E.), with
another literary anthology that includes three major sections of love poetry on the recto.
205
Each
section may have been introduced by a rubric, but this has not survived for the first of the three.
It seems to be a collection of eight only loosely related poems or stanzas (nos. 18), equally
distributed between male and female speakers.
206
The second section is introduced as The
beginning of the delightful, beautiful songs of your beloved sister when she returns from the
fields.
207
It is comprised of eight loosely connected poems or stanzas, each spoken by a woman
(nos. 916). The final section bears the rubric Beginning of the Songs of Entertainment
208
and
exhibits an integrated cycle of three flower poems, recited by a woman (nos. 1719).
A comparable cycle of three tree poems (nos. 2830) is preserved on the Turin Papyrus,
dating from the 20th dynasty.
209
In each of these a particular tree speaks, declaring itself to be a
willing accomplice to the desires and trysts of human lovers.
The collection known as the Cairo Love Songs (nos. 2027) was once featured on a tall, late
19th or early 20th dynasty vase that has been reconstructed from some thirty-one surviving

Entertainer (a feminine participle), perhaps the epithet of a prominent Egyptian poetess and distant
predecessor of Sappho. For translated excerpts from this cycle, see below: pp. 17879, n. 7 (no. 31); pp.
18889, n. 15 (no. 38); and pp. 13637, n. 18 (no. 37).
203
Simpson, Literature, 322. See also below: p. 140, n. 5 (no. 40).
204
See below: p. 169, n. 7 (no. 46).
205
Text and studies: W. Max Mller, Die Liebespoesie der alten gypter (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899) 14
28 and pls. 215; White, Study, esp. 16977; Fox, 729 [translation and notes], 37082 [hieroglyphic
text].
206
See below: p. 169, n. 7 (no. 7).
207
So Lichtheim, Literature 2, 190.
208
So Simpson, Literature, 308.
209
Text and studies: Gaston Maspero, Les chants damour du papyrus de Turin et du papyrus Harris no.
500, Journal asiatique 8/1 (1883) 547; White, Study, esp. 18587; Fox, 4451 [translation and notes],
389393 [hieroglyphic text]. See below: p. 188, n. 14 (no. 30).
fragments.
210
Recently, Fox has argued that the text should be read as two integrated poems, each
with seven stanzas.
211
In the first poem, both a man and a woman speak; the central theme is the
crossing of a river that separates the lovers.
212
The second poem consists of a series of seven
wishes, spoken by a man who is evidently obsessed with the desire to be near his beloved. In the
initial stanzas, for example, he yearns to become her maid, her laundryman, and the seal-ring on
her finger.
213

Comparative Observations. As in the biblical Song, the celebration of love in these
Ramesside songs or poems is predominantly humanistic.
214
Nothing in the latter suggests a
drama of divine marriage, a cultic setting, or a pronounced interest in matters of religion. There
are, to be sure, occasional references to deitiesespecially Hathor, the Golden One, goddess
of love, who is supposed to hear and respond to the petitions of human lovers.
215
For example,
the second Chester Beatty cycle has the following conclusion to the womans urgent request for
her lovers quick return (no. 40):
216

Before you have kissed your hand four times,
you shall have reached her hideaway
as you chase the lady love.

210
Text and studies: Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Eine neue Sammlung von Liebesliedern, Aegyptiaca:
Festschrift Georg Ebers (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1897) 11721; Georges Posener, Catalogue des
ostraca hiratiques littraires de Deir el Mdineh, Vol. 2/3 (Fouilles de linstitut franais darchologie
orientale 18; Cairo: Linstitut franais darchologie orientale, 1972) 4344 and pls. 7579a; White,
Study, esp. 18789; Fox, 2944 [translation and notes], 38389 [hieroglyphic text].
211
Fox, 30 and 19799. Cf. also Michael V. Fox, The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 101109; and
Virginia L. Davis, Remarks on Michael V. Foxs The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 11114.
212
See below: p. 160, n. 12; and p. 196, n. 7 (no. 21).
213
See below: p. 196, n. 7 (no. 27).
214
The major Egyptian love-song collections, along with other examples of Ramesside literature and art,
are generally taken to attest a revival and development of the openness to naturalism inaugurated in
the Amarna age (later 18th dynasty, fourteenth century B.C.E.). See Hellmut Brunner, Grundzge einer
Geschichte der altgyptische Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966) 105106;
White, Study, 7479; and Fox, 18386.
215
Most of the references to the Golden One (Hathor) in the major collections surveyed above appear
in the Chester Beatty love songs: see nos. 32, 3536, 40, 42. Inscriptions and songs of praise dedicated
to the goddess are included among the supplemental texts translated in Siegfried Schotts edition of the
love songs: Les chants d amour de l gypte ancienne (tr. Paul Krieger; Lorient ancient illustr; Paris: A.
Maisonneuve, 1956) 89170. On Hathor and her cult, see Claas J. Bleeker, Der religise Gehalt einiger
Hathor-Lieder, Zeitschrift fr gyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 99 (1973) 8288. Cf. White, Study,
7174 and 9899; and Fox, 23436.
216
Simpson, Literature, 32223.
For it is the Golden Goddess
who has set her aside for you, friend.
On the whole, however, Hathors active providence seems much less prominent in
accommodating the liaisons of the human lovers in this poetry than their own vigorous initiatives
(perhaps to her divine delight!). There is also a comparable anonymity to the identities of the
lovers in both the biblical and Egyptian poetry. The youthful male and female voices that are
heard throughout the Ramesside texts are never identified by name so as to imply some
autobiographical or historical purpose for the compositions.
217
According to Foxs cogent
analysis, these ancient Egyptian songs were composed for entertainment.
218
They may have been
performed by professional singers, with musical accompaniment, at private banquets and public
festivals over the course of generations, delighting audiences through the clever use of both
exotic imagery and erotic allusions.
Like the biblical Song, the Egyptian poetry vividly portrays commonplaces of human sexual
attraction and affection: intoxication with the beauty and charms of ones beloved, yearning for
the lovers presence, love-sickness, the overcoming of natural and social obstacles to be together,
the joys of physical intimacy, and the like. Moreover, the Egyptian and biblical works breathe a
common atmosphere of sensual pleasures: seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting. And the
environments of love they depict similarly abound with perfumes, spices, fruits and flowers,
trees and gardens.
In addition to such general resemblances, the Ramesside poetry and the Song share more
specific topoi, a few examples of which are mentioned here.
219

a) As Erman observed, the woman is frequently referred to as the sister of her lover in both the
Song (always by the man: e.g., 4:9*, 10*, 12*) and the Egyptian songs (by herself as well as by

217
The only figure specifically named in these love songs who may have been an historical personage is
the illusive Mehy (no. 33), perhaps identical with Pamehy (no. 15): regarding his possible identity
and significance, see Fox, 6466.
218
Fox, esp. 24447; and also Fox, The Entertainment Song Genre in Egyptian Literature, Egyptological
Studies (SH 28; ed. Sarah Israelit-Groll; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1982) 268316.
219
See the list in Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 102. For detailed discussion of the topoi, cf. White, Study,
91159; and Fox, 18193.
*
9
*
10
the man: e.g., nos. 2, 5, 79). The comparable epithet brother for the male lover does not
appear in the Song (but cf. 8:12*), though it is amply attested in the Egyptian material (e.g.,
nos. 9, 14, 15).
220

b) The following are among the similarly superlative compliments that characterize the lovers in
these literatures:
221
most beautiful youth (no. 13), most beautiful of women (1:8*); without
duplicate, more perfect than the world (no. 31), perfect one (5:2*); she is like the star rising
at the start of an auspicious year (no. 31), [she] comes forth like the dawn, beautiful as the
moon (6:10*).

*
12
*
1
2
220
Comparable use of sister and brother as epithets for lovers is frequent in Sumerian texts (e.g.,
Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation [New Haven/London: Yale
University, 1987] 9798 *Tavern Sketch+); cf. also, in the Ugaritic corpus, the overture made by the
goddess Anat to the hero Aqhat: You are my brother and I am *your+ sister (CTA 18 [= UT 3 Aqht]
1.24).
221
Translations of Egyptian phrases in this and the following paragraph are those of Simpson, Literature.
*
8
*
2
*
c) The wafs of the Song and the Ramesside songs use comparably extravagant similes and
metaphors to depict the anatomy of lovers: the mouth of my girl is a lotus bud (no. 3), his
lips, lilies that drip flowing myrrh (5:13*); her arms finer than gold (no. 31), his head is
gold, pure gold (5:11*); her breasts are mandrake apples (no. 3), your breasts [are] like two
fawns (7:4*[3*]).
What has been called literary fictionusually involving role-playing and the blurring of
distinctions between reality and fantasymay be a characteristic feature of ancient love-
literature as well as of modern romances. The audience or readership is at least implicitly invited
to assume the identities of the lovers portrayed, to escape into them and be transformed with
them through the experiences of love that are described. As depicted, the lovers may also
imagine themselves and each other in fictional dress. The applicability of such phenomena to
themes of the Ramesside love songs has been suggested by Hermann.
222
Drawing upon the
literary insights of Andr Jolles, he identified three generic disguises or travesties in the

10
banners?
*
13
*
11
*
3
*
3
222
Hermann, Liebesdichtung, 11124; see also White, Study, 109114 and 14648. Fox (29294)
observes that Hermann has distorted the analysis of Jolles by attempting to apply the three types of
travesty to isolated motifs in the Egyptian poetry; but he recognizes a royal disguise in the Song
when the woman speaks of her lover as king (1:4*, 12*; 3:711*).
portraits of the lovers: royal, servant, and shepherd. While the persona of a king is not
mentioned in these texts, in contrast to the biblical Song (1:4*, 11*; 3:511*; 7:6*[5*]), the guise

*
4
*
11
*
5
until it is ready!
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
*
5
tresses.
*
of royalty for the male lover is indirectly represented by such motifs as the kings steed on
which he is urged to race into the womans presence (no. 39). In the apotheosis of love, she can
deem herself Mistress of the Two Lands (no. 8), and she is supposed to wear a garment of
royal linen befitting a queen or royal concubine (no. 20). The servant fiction, which the biblical
Song lacks, is explicit in the first Harris 500 collection, when the man imagines himself as the
doorkeeper of the womans house (no. 7), and in the Cairo Love Songs, when he desires to
become her maid and washerman (nos. 2526). Conversely, the woman once voices a desire
to become her lovers housekeeper (no. 13). According to Hermanns scheme, the shepherd
fiction is reflected in the Egyptian songs when rustic and pastoral roles are associated with the
lovers. For example, the man can portray himself as a simple peasant travelling down the Nile
(no. 5), and the woman may imagine snaring lovers as she does birds (no. 9). The role of
shepherds is directly attributed to the lovers in the biblical Song (1:78*); the woman is also
described as a vineyard-keeper (1:6*) and, more allusively, as the gardener of her own
delicacies, held in store for her lover (4:125:1*). The implication of all this for the Song is that

5
tresses.
*
7
8
*
6
*
12
13
14
spices
15
even abrupt shifts in theme and a lovers immediate persona do not necessarily point to literary
incoherence or multiplicity of characters. The fantasies of lovers may create a variety of roles
and realms for their love-making.
As regards literary form, the most obvious difference between the biblical Song and the
Egyptian poems is an interesting one. Characteristic of the latter material is direct first-person
speech but, as Lichtheim notes, it is in every instance monologue addressed to the speakers
own heart.
223
Even in the integrated cycles, where both male and female speakers are
represented, there is no true dialogue between the parties. Their respective speeches are, rather,
juxtaposed soliloquies. The man always refers to the woman in the third person; and though the
woman often seems to address him in the second person, he is never portrayed as physically
present to hear her. Comparison thus calls attention to the important function that dialogue has in
integrating poetic units of the Song.
B. Cuneiform Sources
Lyrical celebrations of human love, closely comparable in type to the poetry of the biblical Song
and the Ramesside collections, are not well-represented in the extant Sumerian and Akkadian
literatures of ancient Mesopotamia. Thus, most of the alleged cuneiform parallels to the Song
consist either of generic topoi attested in non-correlative literary genres or of references to sexual
activities that were or may have been associated with sacred marriage rites. Advocates of the
cultic theory have made much of the latter data, supposing them to provide the concrete, even
clinical, information needed to decipher the allusive language of the Song. But in most cases the
connections are tenuous or enigmatic; similarities are less conspicuous than differences,
prominent among them being virtual absence in the Song and the Ramesside poems alike of
procreation themes, demonstrably cultic motifs, and overt descriptions of sexual intercourse.
224

Sumerian Poetry. Foremost among recent proponents of the Songs cultic origins is Samuel
Noah Kramer, whose views have been sketched in several publications dealing primarily with
Sumerian texts that feature the deities Dumuzi and Inanna.
225
According to Kramer, at least some

16
1
I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with
my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.
223
Lichtheim, Literature 2, 181. Cf. Fox (326), who contrasts the basically inward orientation of the
Egyptian poetry to the Song: The Egyptian poets, fascinated by what goes on inside a lovers heart,
have the lovers tell us what this is. The poet of the Song, on the other hand, has the lovers concentrate
on each other rather than on their emotions. Of course they do convey their feelings quite effectively,
but they do so mainly by speaking of realities external to their emotional states.
224
Cf. Fox, 24243 and 298300.
225
Samuel Noah Kramer, The Biblical Song of Songs and the Sumerian Love Songs, Expedition 5 (1962)
2531; The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer
of the songs lyrics were sung in the course of the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage,
between a king and a votary of Astarte, the Canaanite goddess of love and procreation whom
even so wise a Hebrew king as the great Solomon, worshipped and adored, according to 1 Kings
11:5*.
226
To find its textual support, this hypothesis further claims that behind the Hebrew
adaptation of a Canaanite rite lies the Akkadian cult of Tammuz and Ishtar,
227
and ultimately the
DumuziInanna cult that flourished in Sumer during the third millennium B.C.E.
Kramers theory involves too many sweeping assumptions about Solomonic fertility rites and
millennial continuities of cult in ancient Near Eastern religions to carry conviction.
228
Yet the
Song does exhibit some affinities of theme with Sumerian love-literature; these merit notice if
only because they illustrate reciprocal influences between profane and sacral poetry, between
celebrations of human and divine love.
229
The pertinent Sumerian evidence is attested in three
broad literary categories identified by Kramer: lyrical compositions that variously portray the
courtship of Dumuzi, king (or young god) and shepherd, and Inanna, tutelary goddess of Erech
and its shrine Eanna; texts that pertain more directly to rites of sacred marriage, involving
Dumuzi and Inanna or their royal and cultic surrogates; and courtly love poetry that may have
been sung in general festivities associated with sacred rites.

(Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1969) esp. 85106; and also his primary edition of pertinent
Sumerian texts, cited in the following note.
*
5
For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the abomination of the
Ammonites.
1 Kings 11:5 (NRSV)
226
Samuel Noah Kramer, Cuneiform Studies and the History of Literature: The Sumerian Sacred
Marriage Texts, PAPS 107 (1963) 489.
227
As elaborately argued, e.g., by Wilhelm Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum
Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung [Heinz Lefaire], 1926); and Hartmut Schmkel, Heilige
Hochzeit und Hoheslied (Abhandlungen fr die Kunde des Morgenlandes; Wiesbaden: Deutsche
Morgenlndische Gesellschaft [Franz Steiner], 1956).
228
Cf. Johannes Renger, Heilige Hochzeit, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, Band 2 (ed. Dietz Otto Edzard
et al.; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 197275) 25159, esp. 25758.
229
Cf. Eissfeldt, Old Testament, 489, where comment is made as follows on Schmkels reading of the
Song: However, a closer examination of such attempts at Interpretation hardly leads to anything more
than the probability, certainly worthy of notice and indeed in other ways significant, that in Israel, as
elsewhere in the world, the language of lovers has been influenced by mythical and cultic diction just
as it is also true that myth has made borrowings from erotic poetry. The consideration of the
relationship between lovepoetry and religious diction may appropriately make more intelligible the
factcertainly in other respects so remarkablenamely, that a collection of quite realistic love songs
could be applied to the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.
The courtship poems are episodic and only indirectly related to ritual or cult. According to
Thorkild Jacobsen, they comprise popular stories and songs of lightweight entertainment in
which the names Dumuzi and Inanna seem in fact to stand merely for those of two young
lovers without any suggestion that deities are involved.
230
It is not surprising, then, that these
poems and the Song attest similar motifss of youthful desire, exuberance, and mutual infatuation,
or that the topos of the womans maternal house appears in both literatures.
231
The Sumerian
tales, typically constructed in the form of dialogues, are not without touches of whimsy that
remind one of the womans relationship to her protective brothers in the Song (cf. 1:6*; 8:8
10*). For example, Dumuzis elder sister, Geshtinanna, tantalizes him with a report of how much
Inanna loves him; when he begs for permission to seek out Inanna at her palace, Geshtinanna
replies with a pompous tease:
232

To my paternal eye
you are verily still a small child,
yonder Baba [Inanna] may know you for a man.
I shall let you go to her!
In another of the poems it is Inannas elder brother, Utu, who gradually allays her fears about the
marriage he has arranged for her, finally revealing that her spouse to be is none other than her
beloved Ama-ushumgal-anna (Dumuzi).
233

230
Jacobsen, Harps, 2; see also Thorkild Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian
Religion (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1976) 27.
231
Compare 3:4* and 8:12* with the text in Jacobsen, Harps, 1012 (The Wiles of Women). Cf.
Kramer, Studies, no. 4 (499501) and also his translation of the text, ANET
3
, 63940 (The Ecstasy of
Love).
*
8
spoken for?
9
10
232
Jacobsen, Harps, 89 (The Sisters Message); and also Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sisters Message,
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 5 (1973: Gaster Festschrift) 199212.
Cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 4 (50910); and Kramer, ANET
3
, 645 (Set Me Free, My Sister).
233
Jacobsen, Harps, 1315 (The Bridal Sheets). On the figure of Dumuzi, and his primary epithets and
avatars, see the classic study of Thorkild Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz, History of Religions
1 (1961) 189213 (reprinted in Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on
Sumerian texts in the second category more directly depict rites of hieros gamos, and
articulate their cultic or religious significance, but the various literary genres represented bear
little resemblance to the poetic dialogues, soliloquies, and wafs that characterize the Song.
Conversely, the Songs cultic provenance must be doubted precisely because it lacks
counterparts to the extensive Sumerian narrative descriptions of rituals, prayers for fertility, and
announcements of divine blessing.
234
Such, differences of genre and emphasis should be kept in
mind when assessing the possible import of isolated thematic similarities; some specific
examples are cited below.
a) In the dream-like episode of 5:26*, the woman is aroused from sleep by the sound of the
mans knocking at the door of her house. He pleads to enterOpen to me, my sister, my friend,
my dove, my perfect one!and even thrusts his hand into the latch-hole; but when she finally
gets up with palpitating heart to let him in, he has gone. While the text as it stands obviously
does not describe a wedding rite, it may well adumbrate frustrated desire of the lovers for

Mesopotamian History and Culture [Harvard Semitic Series 21; ed. William L. Moran; Cambridge:
Harvard University, 1970] 73101); and William L. Moran, The Name Dumuzi, JQR 76(1985) 4145.
234
For an overview of the major Sumerian hieros gamos texts, see Thorkild Jacobsen, Religious Drama
in Ancient Mesopotamia, Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the
Ancient Near East (ed. Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts; Johns Hopkins Near Eastern Studies;
Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 1975) 6597, esp. 6571. For the texts, see nn. 236 and
238 below, and also the following compositions as collated and translated by Samuel Noah Kramer: The
King of the Road: A Self-Laudatory Shulgi Hymn, ANET
3
, 58486; Blessing on the Wedding Night,
ANET
3
, 64041 (Studies, no. 5 [501503+); Prayer for Water and Bread, ANET
3
, 641642 (Studies,
no. 6 [503505+); Prosperity in the Palace, ANET
3
, 64244 (Studies, no. 7 *505508+); Inanna and
ulgi: A Sumerian Fertility Song, Iraq 31 (1969) 2022; Shulgi of Ur: A Royal Hymn and a Divine
Blessing, The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review (ed. Abraham A.
Neuman and Solomon Zeitlin; Philadelphia: Jewish Quarterly Review, 1967) 36980.
*
2
3
4
5
6
connubial union. Opening the door of the brides house or bedchamber was, according to
Jacobsen, the central ceremony in a Sumerian wedding, which concluded the marriage and
immediately preceded its consummation.
235
In a poetic account of Dumuzis wedding, for
example, he comes laden with gifts to Inannas house and requests entry:
236

The shepherd called out unto the house,
Dumuzi thrust a hand against the door (crying):
Make haste to open the house, Milady!
Make haste to open the house!
Inannas mother, Ningal, announces that the bridegroom has arrived and instructs Inanna to
bathe, anoint herself with fine oil, and dress in her royal paraphernalia; only then does the
ceremony proceed:
The young lady stood waiting
Dumuzi pushed (open) the door,
and like a moonbeam she came forth to him
out of the house.
He looked at her, rejoiced in her,
took her in his arms [and kissed her.]
b) In 6:10*, the Songs male lover boasts that his beloved is preeminently beautiful and hence
even women of the royal court express their adulation when she appears:
Who is this that comes forth like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon?
Pure as the sun,
awe-inspiring as visions?
Such is indeed hymnic praise, as would befit Inanna or another astral goddess.
237
Thus a
Sumerian hymn, which is attributed to Iddin-Dagan (third ruler of the Isin dynasty, c. 1950
B.C.E.) and includes one of the clearest accounts of hieros gamos rites, opens with adoration of
Inanna as morning and evening star:
238

The one come forth on high,
the one come forth on high,
I will hail!

235
Jacobsen, Treasures, 35. Cf. Samuel Greengus, Old Babylonian Marriage Ceremonies and Rites, JCS
20 (1966) 5572.
236
Jacobsen, Harps, 21 (Dumuzis Wedding, 1923). Cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 3 (49799); and Kramer,
ANET
3
, 63839 (Courting, Marriage, and Honeymoon). The ceremony of opening the door also figures
prominently in the so-called Uruk sacred marriage text: Kramer, Studies, no. 2 (49597); and Kramer,
ANET
3
, 638 (Love in the Gipar); cf. Jacobsen, Treasures, 3337.
237
Cf. Wolfram Herrmann, Gedanken zur Geschichte des altorientalischen Beschreibungslieder, ZAW
75 (1963) 17697.
238
Jacobsen, Harps, 113 (Hymn to Inanna as Warrior, Star, and Bride, 11224). For collation of the
cuneiform text, with translation and notes, see Daniel Reisman, Iddin-Dagans Sacred Marriage Hymn,
JCS 25 (1973) 185202.
The [h]oly one, come forth on high,
I will hail!
The great [queen] of heaven,
Inanna,
I will hail!

Of her grandeur, of her greatness,
of her exceeding nobility,
of her brilliant coming forth
in the evening sky,
of her lighting up in the sky
like Moon and Sun,
noted by all lands from south to north,
of the greatness of the holy one of heaven,
to the young lady I will sing!
c) In the Song, 3:611* is the only passage that seems clearly to portray a ritual event, apparently
a festive procession on Solomons wedding day.
239
The elaborate, perfumed litter bearing the
king is accompanied by a guard (vv 78*):
This is Solomons litter,
sixty warriors surround it,
of the warriors of Israel.
All of them skilled with the sword,
trained for war;

*
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
239
For comment on the anomalous character of this unit in comparison with the rest of the Song, see
below, pp. 15152.
Each with his sword ready
against the terrors of the night.
The Iddin-Dagan hymn cited above includes a lengthy account of processional rites hailing
Inannas appearance as a warrior, perhaps in connection with New Years festivities of the hieros
gamos that is described later in the poem. Among those who march before the goddess (or her
human surrogate?) is a corps of finely garbed, priestly warriors:
240

They (themselves) are girt
with implements of battle,
before holy Inanna, before her eyes,
they are parading
spears, the arms of battle,
are in their hands.
The third and most pertinent category of Sumerian texts for comparison with the Song is
comprised of royal love songs.
241
Most of the published examples are addressed to or otherwise
name Shu-Suen, the fourth or fifth ruler of the Ur III dynasty (cf. 2000 B.C.E.). In all essential
respects these songs appear to celebrate secular human love, though most bear subscriptions
designating them as bal.bal.e compositions (dialogic poems?) pertaining to Inanna,
presumably in her role as patroness of love, both human and divine.
242
Topoi similar to those
attested in the Song include use of the epithets brother and sister for the male and female
lovers, as well as frequent references to the (honey) sweet physical charms of the lovers, their
love-making skills, and the pleasures of love itself. Once again, a few examples will suffice, both
to indicate the character of the parallels and the typically more explicit depiction of sexual
matters in the Sumerian poetry.
a) The opening lines of the Song (1:24*) are particularly difficult to interpret. They exhibit such
abrupt shifts in theme and forms of address (enallage) that one might be inclined to think of them

240
Jacobsen, Harps, 116.
241
See now Bendt Alster, Sumerian Love Songs, Revue dAssyriologie 79 (1985) 12759. Alster sounds
some important notes of caution regarding Kramers broad cultic interpretation of the Sumerian
loveliterature. He suggests that in the love songs especially poetry of popular origin is visible behind
the official stamp of the court or the temple (128).
242
See Jacobsen, Harps, 87. On the bal. bal. e, and other Sumerian literary genres associated with cult,
see William W. Hallo, The Cultic Setting of Sumerian Poetry, Actes de la XVII
e
Rencontre
Assyriologique Internationale: Bruxelles, 30 juin-4 juillet 1969 (ed. Andr Finet; Gembloux: J. Duculot,
1970) 11634.
*
2
3
4
as comprising a list of incipits of separate love poems, rather than a single coherent unit.
Whatever the case as regards original unity, however, the juxtaposed elements do convey the
womans intense, competitive yearning (vis--vis the maidens) to experience and celebrate the
mans amatory abilities. She likens him to or identifies him as the king who has led her into his
royal chamber, and she uses both second-person and third-person singular pronouns to refer to
him; imperative and plural cohortative verb forms express her desire for their mutual enjoyment
of love (v 4*):
Draw me after you! Let us run!
The king has brought me to his chambers.
Let us exult and rejoice in you!
Let us extol your love beyond wine!
Rightly do they [the maidens?] love you.
Some obvious similarities of mood, theme, and language are evident in the following lines from
one of the Sumerian love songs, addressed by a young womanwho is apparently not the
queento Shu-Suen:
243

O! that you, my own lord and sergeant at arms
would march against me!
Lad, I would flee from you
into the bedroom.
O! that you would do,
all the sweet things to me
my sweet dear one
you bring that which will be honey sweet!
In the bedrooms honey-sweet corner,
let us enjoy over and over
your charms and sweetnesses!
b) In 2:46* of the Song, there appears to be a terse description by the woman of a tryst with her
lover in a wine house. Reference is made to the mans banner (digl), which is perhaps the

243
Jacobsen, Harps, 88 (Love Song to Shu-Suen, 8889). For collation and discussion of this
composition, and also of the Tavern Sketch cited in the following note, see Thorkild Jacobsen, Two
bal-bal-e Dialogues, Love & Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. John
H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford: Four Quarters, 1987) 5763.
*
4
5
6
sign or verbal pledge of his love for her (v 4*); the account closes with a glimpse of the man
fondling her (v 6*; cf. 8:3*):
His left hand is under my head,
and his right hand embraces me.
A Sumerian love-dialogue, entitled Tavern Sketch by Jacobsen, seems to portray a liaison
between a tapstress or hierodule and an amorous, out-of-town guest at her drinking
establishment. While acquiescing to his proposition with alacrity, she teasingly elicits from him a
pledgeto be sworn during their embrace, in which he touches her genitalsthat he is not an
enemy:
244

My [letting down] for you
the thin, exquisite gown,
O my beloved one, man [I am enraptured by,]
[will] set the (manner of) oath [for you,]
o my brother (so) fair of face!
Your right hand be placed
in my private parts,
your left shall support my head,
and when you have neared
your mouth to my mouth,
when you hold my lip in your teeth,
(then), thus you must swear me the oath!
c) The door episode in 5:26a*, already noted above in connection with Sumerian wedding-rites,
is immediately followed by report of the womans futile search for her absent or departed lover,
during which she encounters and is harshly treated by watchmen making their nightly rounds of
the city (vv 6b7*). A similar scenario is sketched in 3:14*, with a more positive outcome as
follows (vv 34*):

*
3
244
Jacobsen, Harps, 98 (Tavern Sketch, 9798); Jacobsen appropriately compares the oath-taking rites
referred to in Gen 24:89* and 47:29*.
*
6
7
*
It was I the watchmen came upon
as they made their rounds of the city.
Him whom my soul loveshave you seen him?
I had hardly left them
when I found him who my soul loves.
I held on to him and would not let him go
until I brought him to the house of my mother,
to the room of her who bore me.
Though the plot differs, there is a remarkably similar concatenation of motifs in one of the
Sumerian poems. It is addressed by a woman, perhaps a young bride who still resides in her
maternal home, to her absent lover whom she calls our son-in-law:
245

O our son-in-law, as you let day slip by,
O our son-in-law, as you let night fall,
as you let the moonlight turn in,
the stars all wane,
I (now) unfasten for you bolt and pure lock
from the door! Run! Come quickly!
[textual gap]
There is the (watch on its) round of the wall!
When the patrol has passed,
O our son-in-law, when the patrol has gone to rest,
seize the twilight by the hand, whatever such
there (still) be,

1
2
3
4
*
3
4
245
Jacobsen, Harps, 90 (As You Let Day Slip By).
they have unleased daylight!
Come to our house quickly!
d) The form of the waf as it appears in the Ramesside love poetry and the biblical Song (e.g.,
4:15*; 5:1016*) is not closely replicated in the Sumerian poems.
246
But they do attest

*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
*
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
246

Cf. Jerrold S. Cooper, New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 90 (1971) 15762. Cooper
calls attention to a Sumerian text in which a certain Ludingira wishes to send greetings to his mother in
Nippur. The effusive son gives the messenger various signs by which to recognize the woman,
descriptive praises of the beloved, employing extravagant metaphor and simile, as in the
following lines addressed to Shu-Suen:
247

Sweet one, tree well grown!
Oh my one fair of locks
O my one fair of locks
like a date palm!
O my one fair of shaggy neck
like the date fibers!

O my lapis lazuli beard!
O my roped locks!
My one with beard mottled
like a slab of lapis lazuli,
my one with locks arranged ropewise!
You are my turban pin,
my gold I wear,
my trinket fashioned by
a cunning craftsman.
e) Poetic euphemism and double-entendre are devices well attested in both the Song and the
Sumerian love songs. In 7:3*[2*] the womans lower abdominal region, apparently including her
pudenda, is described by the man as follows:

including metaphorical descriptions of her beauty that are somewhat reminiscent of wafs in the Song.
For example, the mother is said to be (160):
An alabaster statuette set on a lapis pedestal,
A living rod of ivory, whose limbs are filled with charm.
With imagery comparable to Cant 4:1215*, she is later compared to a garden (161):
A garden of delight, full of joy,
A watered pine, adorned with pine cones,
A spring flower, a first fruit,
An irrigation ditch carrying luxuriant waters to garden plots,
A sweet date from Dilmun, a date chosen from the best.
247
Jacobsen, Harps, 91 (He Arrives).
*
2
lilies.
Your valley, a round bowl
that is not to lack mixed wine.
Your belly, a heap of wheat,
surrounded with lillies.
The intoxicating character (mixed wine) of her valley is reminiscent of a comparison in one
of the Shu-Suen poems:
248

And her private parts
are sweet like her beer
and her beer is sweet!
Elsewhere in the Sumerian poems lettuce is a favored euphemism for the female pubes; in the
following example, the womans lettuce is also equated with her garden, tended by the
man:
249

Vigorously he sprouted,
vigorously he sprouted and sprouted,
watered itit being lettuce!
In his black garden of the desert bearing much yield
did my darling of his mother,
my barley stalk full of allure in its furrow,
water itit being lettuce,
did my onea very apple tree bearing fruit at the
top
water itit being a garden!
Comparison here of the man, or the male member, to an apple tree has a counterpart in the
Tavern Sketch, when the tapstress offers final praise of her lover:
250

O my budding one, my budding one,
sweet are your charms!
My budding garden of the apple tree,
My fruiting garden of the apple tree,

*
2
lilies.
248
Jacobsen, Harps, 96 (The First Child, 9596); cf. Kramer, ANET
3
, (Love-Song to a King).
249
Jacobsen, Harps, 94 (Vigorously He Sprouted); cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 9 (508509); and Kramer,
ANET
3
, 645 (The Honey-Man). See also Jacobsen, Harps, 93 (My Wool Being Lettuce; cf. Kramer,
Studies, no. 8 (508); and Kramer, ANET
3
, 644 (Lettuce is My Hair).
250
Jacobsen, Harps, 98.
In the Song, the man is comparably praised by the woman (2:3*):
As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
so is my lover among men.
In his shadow I desire to remain,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
So too the Song compares the woman to a garden whose fruits the man enjoys (4:125:1*;
6:2*, 11*); she is also likened to a vineyard (1:6*; cf. 2:15*; 8:1112*), which in 7:13*
apparently informs her invitation to a rendezvous:

*
3
*
2
to gather lilies.
*
11
*
15
*
11
12
*
Let us be off early to the vineyards,
let us see if the vines have budded;
If the blossoms have opened,
if the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.
In sum, a number of strikingly similar topoi are attested in the Sumerian love poems and the
Song. However, it is equally important to observe that several of the Sumerian compositions
(those entitled by Jacobsen He Arrives, First Child, and Tavern Sketch) share with the
biblical Song use of the literary device of dialogue, whose absence is conspicuous in the
otherwise comparable Egyptian collections surveyed earlier. These topoi and the common use of
dialogue seem quite intelligible as belletristic features; there is, in any case, no compelling
reason to posit a fertility cultus or specifically liturgical transmission as the primary link between
them.
Ugaritic and Akkadian Texts. Apart from the Song itself, evidence for developed literary
traditions of love poetry in the Semitic cultures of the ancient Near East is quite meager.
While amatory exploits certainly figure in poetic compositions recovered from the
fourteenth-century B.C.E. archives of Ugarit in Syria, none of the published Ugaritic tablets
exhibits a love-ballad (human or divine), a waf, an erotic dialogue, or the like.
251
The only
Ugaritic texts that merits particular notice is the one sometimes referred to as the Birth of the
Gracious and Beautiful Gods.
252
The text is liturgical in character and has been described as
the libretto for a cultic drama, featuring a hieros gamos between the high-god El and two
young women or goddesses who conceive and bear the deities Dawn (aar) and Dusk
(alim).
253
Yet it is not clear that the texts account of these mythological events was supposed to
be reenacted in the form of cultic drama per se. Given the themes emphasized in the longer text,
one might suspect instead that the rites in question pertained to male potency, with the myth

12
251
This is not to deny, of course, the light that the Ugaritic texts have shed on linguistic aspects of the
Song, nor even the presence of common motifs in the literatures. For such data, see the index of
Ugaritic references in Pope (74243) and also the unpublished study of Keith N. Schoville, The Impact of
the Ras Shamra Texts on the Study of the Song of Songs (Ph.D. dissertation; University of Wisconsin,
1969).
252
CTA 23 (UT 52). For introductory comments, bibliography of relevant studies, and an annotated
translation of the full text, see Andr Caquot, Maurice Sznycer, and Andre Herdner, Textes
Ougaritiques, Tome I: Mythes et Lgendes (Littratures anciennes do Proche-Orient 7; Paris: Cerf, 1974)
35579.
253
Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 1973) 22. Cf. Johannes C. de Moor, New Year with Canaanites and
Israelites, Part Two: The Canaanite Sources (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1972) 1724.
serving as incantation to enhance the effect of a medicinal potion or charm.
254
Whatever the case
as regards specific ritual setting and function, however, the sexual encounter between El and his
unnamed brides is tersely narrated; the focus is on procreation rather than the emotions of love or
even the act of love-making:
255

He (Ilu) leaned over, kissed their lips.
Ah, their lips were sweet,
sweet as pomegranates!
After kissing and impregnation,
after embrace (there was) incubation [heat].
The pair (of wives) came to term, they gave birth:
Dawn and Dusk.
Here, the only obvious resemblance to the Song is found in the topos of fruit-sweet kisses (cf.
1:2* and 4:1011*).
More surprising is the paucity of Akkadian literature comparable to either the biblical Song
or the Sumerian love poems. In terms of genre and overt content, the closest extant parallel
seems to be an Old Babylonian dialogic poem (c. seventeenth century B.C.E.), which was initially
supposed to describe King Hammurabis attempt at persuading a young priestess to marry his
son.
256
However, Moshe Held has argued much more convincingly that the difficult cuneiform

254
For recitation of myth in connection with a magical charm, see the Egyptian text translated by John A.
Wilson, ANET
3
, 14 (The God and His Unknown Name of Power, 1214). The cryptic Old Akkadian text
discussed by Jack M. Sasson may have some import in this regard, but its possible connection with the
biblical Song seems remote at best (A Further Cuneiform Parallel to the Song of Songs? ZAW 85 [1973]
35960).
255
CTA 23 (UT 52). 4952: yhbr pthm y[q] hn s pthm mtqtm mtqtm klrmn[m] bm nq
whr . bbg . mmt . tqt[nn] tldn r wlm (tr. by editor).
*
2
*
10
11
256
Wolfram vod Soden, Ein Zwiegesprch Hammurabis mit einer Frau, Zeitschrift fr Assyriologie 49
(1950) 15194.
text presents a fictional dialogue between a woman and the male lover who has abandoned her in
pursuit of other women.
257
Invoking the help of the goddesses of love, Ishtar and Nana, the
scorned woman trusts that she will be able to win her beloved away from the rivals. For his part,
the man rejects her continuing ardor and amatory devices, but he apparently relents in the final
lines; hence true love triumphs through the womans perseverance. Apart from noting some
isolated similarities of motif (e.g., the womans yearning for the man and reference to loves
proverbial sweetness), Held suggests that a chorus of gossipy women in the Babylonian
composition resembles the role played by the Daughters of Jerusalem in the Song.
Initial impetus for Meeks attempt to relate the Song to cultic rites of sacred marriage and
lamentation for Tammuz came from a Middle Assyrian text (c. 1100 B.C.E.) published by Erich
Ebeling.
258
Ebeling himself supposed the document to be a catalogue of Ishtar hymns and love
songs, listed only by their incipits or first-line titles. One of the some fifty-four incipits does
mention the love-goddess, in this case Nana; a few of the incipits may designate specifically
cultic compositions. But, as Held and Loretz have argued, most of the titles seem quite well
suited to profane love-lyrics, similar in type to the poems of the Song and the Old Babylonian
Faithful Lover dialogue noted above.
259
For example, the seventeenth incipit reads Not a
(female) rival equalled me, while the forty-sixthDuring the night I thought of you
reminds one of the womans soliloquy in 5:26*.
260

The so-called Babylonian divine love lyrics, partially reconstructed by W. G. Lambert
from a number of fragmentary cuneiform tablets, pose considerable difficulties of coherence and
sense in their own right.
261
According to Lambert, the texts postdate 1000 B.C.E. and may depict,

257
Moshe Held, A Faithful Lover in an Old Babylonian. Dialogue, JCS 15 (1961) 126; 16 (1962) 3739
*Addenda et Corrigenda+.
Meek Theophile J. Meek, The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegesis in George Arthur Buttrick et al.
258
Erich Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur religisen Inhalts, Band 1 (Wissenschaftliche
Verffentlichungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 28; Leipzig, 1919) no. 158; and Erich Ebeling, Ein
Hymnenkatalog aus Assur, Berliner Beitrge zur Keilschriftforschung 1/3 (1923) 19. Cf. also Erich
Ebeling, Das Hohelied im Lichte der assyrischen Forschungen, ZDMG 78 (1924) LXVIIILXIX. For the
studies of T. J. Meek, see above, p. 40 n. 180.
Loretz Oswald Loretz, Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische Liebeslied.
Untersuchungen zur Stichometrie und Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45. Psalms (AOAT
14/1; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971).
259
Moshe Held, A Faithful Lover in an Old Babylonian Dialogue, JCS 15 (1961)esp. 45; Loretz, Eros,
195202.
260
For the text of KAR no. 158 as translated by Meek, see Pope, 14647.
261
W. G. Lambert, Divine Love Lyrics from Babylon, JSS 4 (1959) 115; and W. G. Lambert, The
Problem of the Love Lyrics, Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the
in the form of narrative and dialogue, New Years rites of hieros gamos, variously involving the
deities Nabu of Borsippa, Ishtar of Babylon, Marduk, and his consort, Zarpanitum.
262
But apart
from some bizarre references to female genitalia, even the sexual content is unclear. At all
events, there is scarcely anything in these documents thus far assembled that bears resemblance
to the primary themes and subtle eroticism of the Songs poetry.
A survey of cuneiform sources thus yields scant evidence to support a cultic interpretation of
the Songs provenance and literary contents. We are on more secure grounds in taking the text
for what it seems to bea delightful poetic exploration of human sexual love, unencumbered by
mythological drama, marriage sacraments, or rites of fertility.
5. Literary Character and Structure of the Song
Generally speaking, form-critical studies have tended to fragment the Song by isolating the
individual poems or songs that are supposed to comprise it. Because such analysis attempts to
associate discrete literary forms with particular social settings and functions, it almost inevitably
concentrates on small units of text. Moreover, in its quest to recover the proto-history of biblical
literature, form-criticism runs the danger of being overly specific as well as hypothetical; rather
than focusing on the structure, texture, and sense of the text as we have received it, pristine
meaning is sought in relationship to reconstructed contexts.
Literary analysis of the Song will be guided in any event by ones basic perception of the
unity or disunity of the work. Commentators who discern broad structural integrity have most
often classified the Song as a drama or poetic dialogue. Those who understand the work to be a
collection of originally independent love poems do not posit a single, comprehensive literary
form. The issue becomes, rather, classification of the individual poems according to their
supposed types and intentions (e.g., a poem of yearning or a waf). Although such detailed form-
critical analysis can provide valuable insight into the literary segments and movement of the text,
its proximate results need not be construed as an argument for the purely anthological character
of the Songs contents, especially since two or more genres can be united in a single poem by
means of such devices as dialogue.
A. Overall Classification (Gattung)
Is there a single genre designation or appropriate Gattung for the Song as a whole?
The first commentator to address this question explicitly was Origen. Although he ventured
to identify the biblical work as a marriage-song [epithalamium] in the form of a drama
[dramatis in modum], he acknowledged that there were literary problems with such a
description.
263
The critical ingenuity of subsequent interpreters has not successfully resolved the
difficulties posed by the genre labels drama and marriage-song(s). The basic problem is that
these terms imply a formal coherence and concreteness of institutional setting that cannot be
sustained by cogent reading of the received text.

Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 1975) 98135.
262
Cf. the earlier reconstruction of such nuptial rites by Svend Aage Pallis, The Babylonian Aktu Festival
(Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historiskfilologiske Meddelelser 12/1; Copenhagen: Bianco
Lunos, 1926) esp. 197200 and 24748.
263
Commentarium in Canticum canticorum, prologue (Lawson, 21); see the discussion above, pp. 1819.
Drama. As observed already by Origen, the Song does not exhibit a development of plot that
one should rightly expect in a drama. Any reasonable attempt to discern a theatrical setting or a
clear sequence of staged events is defied by the notoriously abrupt shifts in the Songs imagery,
scenes, and ostensible speakers. Proponents of the dramatic theory have thus typically tried to
impose order by rearranging the text to reconstruct discrete acts and by supplying missing stage
directions.
264
Particularly serious is the failure among these interpreters to achieve agreement
regarding the number and identities of the main dramatis personae.
In the view of Franz Delitzsch, for example, the Songs main characters are Solomon and a
rustic shepherd girl from Galilee, the Shulammite; the dramas plot concerns how the king
woos her and brings her to live with him in Jerusalem, and the subsequent purification of their
love.
265
In the view made popular by Heinrich Ewald, however, there are three main characters
who interact in something like an ancient soap-opera: King Solomon and a humble shepherd vie
for the hand of the simple Shulammite girl; though initially beguiled by the royal blandishments,
she eventually rejects Solomon in favor of her true love.
266
Such divergent interpretations of the
Songs supposed protagonists and plot point to an underlying problem: theatrical drama, as we
know it, seems to have originated with the Greeks. Nothing in the Hebrew Bible or, for that
matter, in the whole range of ancient Near Eastern literature provides clear evidence of drama as
a literary form.
267
The Song, like the book of Job, is in many respects dramatic, but it cannot
convincingly be described as the script of a drama.
Marriage Song(s). Some commentators have understood the term song itself to be an apt
genre classification. They suppose that the text is a libretto or preserves a collection of works

264
Already a century ago, Eduard Reuss called into question speculative efforts to reconstruct the Song
as a coherent drama; his synoptic presentation of six diverse dramatic readings, including Heinrich
Ewalds, illustrated the precariousness of the enterprise (Le Cantique [La Bible 5; Paris: Sandoz et
Fischbacher, 1879] 2441). The following are among the commentators who have defended dramatic
interpretations of the Song during the present century: Guillaume Pouget and Jean Guitton, Le Cantique
des Cantiques (tB; Paris: Libraire Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1934,
2
1948) = The Canticle of Canticles (tr.
Joseph L. Lilly; The Catholic Scripture Library; New York: Declan X. McMullen, 1948); Albert Hazan, Le
Cantique des Cantiques enfin expliqu (Paris: Librairie Lipzchatz, 1936); and Arvid Bruno, Das Hohe Lied,
Das Buch Hiob: Ein rhythmische und textkritische Untersuchung nebst einer Einfhrung in das Hohe
Lied (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1956). See also above, p. 38 n. 172.
265
Delitzsch, esp. 410.
266
Heinrich Georg Augustus Ewald, Das Hohe Lied Salomos bersetzt und mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen
und einem Anhang (Gttingen, 1826).
267
There are, of course, literary representations of dramatized rituals in biblical and other ancient Near
Eastern sources. E.g., see the Akkadian text (Temple Program for the New Years Festivals at Babylon)
translated by Abraham Sachs, ANET
3
, 33134); what is conspicuous here, in contrast to the Song, is the
detailed account of particular ritual acts and staging.
composed for singing.
268
Such interpretations are too specific and speculative, especially given
the paucity of our knowledge about musical scores, composition, and performance in ancient
Israel.
269
Already in antiquity the poetry of the Song may have been chanted or sung,
270
but there
is no concrete evidence to indicate that it was originally composed for this purpose.
Attempts to identify the work as an epithalamium or book of wedding songs suffer from
additional difficulties. A presumed institutional Sitz im Leben of the Song or its major
components is supposed to be determinative of genre (even though various kinds of poems and
songs might be featured in a wedding celebration). Form is defined by hypothetical social
function rather than by a configuration of literary features per se.
Interpreting the Song as a collection of marriage songs is particularly associated with Karl
Budde, who called it a textbook of a Palestinian-Israelite wedding.
271
Positing a seven-day
celebration, in which bridegroom and bride assumed roles of king and queen, Budde attempted to
discern in the text a detailed scenario of communal festivities, involving choruses of male and
female singers as well as the sword dance.
272
A more cautious approach is taken by Ernst

268
E.g., Morris Jastrow considered the Song to be a loosely structured anthology of twenty-three or
more disparate love ballads and folk songs (The Song of Songs, Being a Collection of Love Lyrics of
Ancient Palestine: A New Translation Based on a Revised Text, together with the Origin, Growth, and
Interpretation of the Songs [Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1921). More recently, Ernst Wurthwein (Das
Hohelied in Ernst Wurthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger, Die fnf Megilloth [HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C.
B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1969+ 25) speaks of love songs (Liebeslieder) and antiphonal singing
(Wechselgesnge). Cf. also Michael D. Goulder, The Song of Fourteen Songs (JSOTSup 36; Sheffield:
JSOT/University of Sheffield, 1986).
269
For a useful, succinct survey of available data, see J. H. Eaton, Musics Place in Worship: A
Contribution from the Psalms, Prophets, Worship and Theodicy: Studies in Prophetism, Biblical Theology
and Structural and Rhetorical Analysis and on the Place of Music in Worship (OTS 23; ed. A. S. van der
Woude; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) 85107. Cf. also Alfred Sendrey, Music in the Social and Religious Life of
Antiquity (Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1974) 77278, esp. 13637 and 16062.
270
For references in rabbinical literature, see above, p. 13 n. 53; cf. Wrthwein, 3132, and Fox, 24750.
Some modern choral works based on the Song are noted by Peter Gradenwitz, The Music of Israel: Its
Rise and Growth Through 5000 Years (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949) 201, 207, 209, 269.
271
Budde, xix.
272
As suggested by J. G. Wetzstein, Die syrische Dreschtafel, Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie 5 (1873) 270
302. It is surprising how influential Wetzsteins study has remained, in view of the problem stated
succinctly by Wesley J. Fuerst: The most serious objection to the wedding cycle theory stems from the
fact that nineteenth-century Syrian customs cannot illuminate very well the situation in Old Testament
Israel (The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five Scrolls [CBC;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975] 166).
Wrthwein, who contends that twenty-four literary units (out of a total of twenty-nine he
recognizes in the Song) refer to aspects of an Israelite wedding.
273

While it is reasonable to suppose that portions of the Song were used in ancient Israelite
wedding festivities,
274
there is no solid basis for identifying marriage rites as either the primary
setting of the entire work or the purpose for which most of the individual poetic units were
composed. The Songs only explicit reference to marriage appears in 3:11*, though in 4:812*
and 5:1* the woman is indeed called bride (kall). Any number of other possible settings,

Wrthwein Ernst Wurthwein, Das Hohelied in Ernst Wurthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger. Die fnf
Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1969) 2571.
273
Wrthwein, 32; cf. also Eissfeldt, Old Testament, 48688.
274
Audet (Le sens, 21114) plausibly suggests that choral singing of wedding songs is meant by the
repeated reference in Jeremiah to the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride (Jer 7:34*;
16:9*; 25:10*; 33:11*). Cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 3334.
*
11
*
8
9
10
11
12
*
1
associated with the manifold interactions and reflections of lovers, could account for the rest of
the poetic units preserved in the Song.
Love Poems. Because it involves fewer presuppositions, poems is a more neutral term than
songs to describe the literary contents of the Song. While love poems is a very general
classification, rather than a specific Gattung, it has the advantage of emphasizing the themes and
motifs that are not only the common stock of the Songs poetry but are expressive of universal
human experiences of love.
B. Component Genres
Friedrich Horst initiated contemporary discussion of the specific literary genres of love poetry
that comprise the Song. He differentiated and described such categories as songs of yearning
(Sehnsuchtslieder), self-descriptions (Selbstschilderung), tease (Scherzgesprch), admiration
(Bewunderungslied), description of experience (Erlebnisschilderung), description of the
beloveds physical charms (Beschreibungslied, the Arabic waf), boasting (Prahllied), and the
like.
275
Following Horsts lead, the present commentary will give attention to specific formal

275
Friedrich Horst, Die Formen des althebrischen Liebesliedes, Orientalistische Studien, Enno
Littmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag berreicht (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1935) 4354 (reprinted in Friedrich
Horst, Gottes Rechte: Gesammelte Studien zum Recht im alten Testament [ed. Hans Walter Wolff; TB 12;
Mnchen: Chr. Kaiser, 1961] 17687). Cf. Roland E. Murphy, Form-Critical Studies in the Song of
Songs, Int 27 (1973) 41322. Form-critical analysis, with close attention to rhetorical patterns, is a
particular strength of Leo Krinetzkis earlier commentary: Das Hohe Lied: Kommentar zu Gestalt und
Kerygma eines alttestamentlichen Liebesliedes (KBANT; Dsseldorf: Patmos, 1964). His recent
commentaries treat form-critical issues more succinctly: Gnter Krinetzki, Hoheslied (NEchB; Wrzburg:
Echter, 1980); Kommentar zum Hohenlied: Bildsprache und Theologische Botschaft (BET 16; Frankfurt
am Main/Bern: Peter D. Lang, 1981). In accord with the format of the BKAT series, Gerlemans
commentary offers a discussion of Form for each pericope of the Song.
features of individual poetic units.
276
The sequence of genres and sub-genres recognized in this
commentary is as follows:
1:1* Superscription.
1:24* A poem of yearning, spoken by the woman.
1:56* A self-description, spoken by the woman.

276

See also the overview in Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 98124. With this analysis may be compared the
eleven Gattungen in the Song recognized by G. Krinetzki (35):
1. Songs of Admiration (Bewunderungslieder), which generally begin with a simile or metaphor
and conclude with a wish, proposal, or request: 1:911*, 1517*; 2:13*; 4:1011*; 6:45b*, 10*; 7:7
10*[69*].
2. Image Songs (Bildlieder), exhibiting three subtypes: (a) metaphorical: 1:1314*; 4:12*; (b)
comparative: 4:1315*; (c) allegorical: 1:12*; 2:1517*; 6:3*; 7:14*[13*] (cf. also 8:14* and 6:2*).
3. Songs of Description (Beschreibungslieder): 3:68*, 910*; 4:17*, 89*; 6:5c7*; 7:16*[6:13
7:5*]; 8:5ab* (cf. 5:1016*), the first two of which are identified more precisely as Wedding Songs
(Hochzeitslieder).
4. Self-Descriptions (Selbstschilderungen), spoken by the young woman in 1:56* and by the
brothers in 8:810*.
5. Boast Songs (Prahllieder), setting the young womans triumph over against the possessions of
an oriental monarch: 6:89*; 8:1112*.
6. Tease (Scherzgesprche), found only in 1:78*.
7. Dialogues (Wechselgesprche), which are primarily a redactional creation, combining individual
elements of various genres: 4:165:1d*; 5:816*; 6:12*; 8:1314*.
8. Descriptions of Experience (Erlebnisschilderungen): 2:89*, 1013*; 3:14*; 5:27*.
9. Songs of Yearning (Sehnsuchtslieder): 1:24*; 2:45*; 2:14*; 7:1213*[1112*]; 8:12*, 67*
(cf. 2:10bc*, 13cd*; 4:16*).
10. Adjuration Song (Beschwrungslied): 2:7*=3:5*=8:4* (cf. 5:8*).
11. Summons to Joy (Aufforderung zur Freude): 3:10e11* and 5:1ef*.
*
1
1:78* A tease, in the form of dialogue between the man and the woman.
1:911* A poem of admiration (adornment), spoken by the man.
1:1214* A poem of admiration (comparison to exotic perfumes), spoken by the woman.
1:152:3* Poems of admiration, united by dialogue.

*
5
Solomon.
6
*
9
10
11
*
12
13
14
*
15
16
17
1
2
3
2:47* A poem of yearning (?); cf. 8:14*.
2:813* A description of an experience, including a song of yearning (vv 1013*), in which the man
invites the woman to a love tryst.

*
4
5
6
7
until it is ready!
*
1
2
3
4
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
2:1415* A tease.
2:1617* An invitation issued to the man by the woman. (The inclusioformed by repetition of the
gazelle/young stag simile in 2:9*, 17*supports the view that the entire unit in 2:817* is a
reminiscence.)

*
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
*
14
15
*
16
17
cleft mountains.
*
9
*
3:15* A description of an experience (which many interpreters regard as a dream).

17
cleft mountains.
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
*
1
2
3
4
3:611* A mixed unit, exhibiting elements of the genres of description and admiration.
4:17* A classical example of the waf, or description of the physical charms of the woman.
4:8* An invitation issued by the man to the woman (which is perhaps to be joined with 4:95:1*).

5
until it is ready!
*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
*
8
*
9
10
4:95:1* A poem of admiration (4:915*), which ends in a dialogue (4:165:1a*) and a concluding address
to the lovers (5:1b*).

11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1
*
9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
*
5:28* A description of an experience (perhaps a dream; cf. 3:15*).
5:9* A question, posed by the Daughters to the woman.
5:1016* In response to the preceding question, the woman utters a waf describing the man.
6:13* A dialogue, comprised of a question posed by the Daughters concerning the whereabouts of the man
(6:1*) and the womans answer (6:23*), in which she speaks of the pleasure the man finds in
her.

16
1
*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
*
9
*
1

2
to gather lilies.
3
*
1
*
2
to gather lilies.
3
6:47* A mixed unit, with a poem of admiration and a waf (repetition of 4:13*), spoken by the man.
6:810* A poem of praise, in which boast is also present.
6:1112* A description of an experience, spoken by the woman.

*
4
5
6
7
*
1
2
3
*
8
9
10
banners?
*
11
7:17*[6:137:6*] A waf, in praise of the womans beauty, preceded by a two-part introduction mentioning
the Shulammite (7:1*).

12
*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7:811*[710*] A poem of admiration and yearning, which ends in a dialogue, as the woman interrupts
(7:10b*), and concludes with the formula of mutual possession (cf. 2:16*; 6:3*).

*
13
*
7
8
9
10
*
7
8
9
10
*
9
*
16
7:1214*[1113*] A poem of yearning.
8:14* A poem of yearning.
8:5* A poem of admiration (?).
8:67* A poem in praise of love, spoken by the woman.

*
3
*
11
12
13
*
11
12
13
*
5
*
6
8:810* A poem of self-description, or perhaps a boast, spoken by the woman.
8:1112* A boast.
8:1314* A dialogue expressing yearning.
C. Structural Integrity
Is there a coherent arrangement of the individual poetic units that comprise the Song?
Although the work in its received form does not exhibit an overt literary structure, such as
one would expect to find in an integrated collection of poetic discourses (cf. the books of Job and
Ecclesiastes), ostensible dialogue between the primary male and female speakers does suggest at
least a contrived unity. It is uncertain whether the dialogical arrangement of poetic units was the
work of an original author or was contributed secondarily by a collector of the poems or an
editor. Similarly, whether or not some substantial units are later additions to the work must
remain an open question.
277

Commentators who have attempted to discern structural coherence to the Song have usually
identified a smaller number of poems within it than the twenty-five or more typically
distinguished by critics who consider the work to be an anthology or loose collection of love
poetry.
278
Those who defend the view that the Song is a drama attempt to identify a limited
number of scenes as providing overall structure, but here no agreement prevails, as we have
already noted. The stoutest proposals for the Songs unity have been based on rhetorical analysis,
identifying features that are supposed to conjoin major poetic units or otherwise to indicate an
artful literary arrangement of individual poems.
Joseph Angnieux, for example, has argued that the Song consists of only eight poems,
which he distinguishes on the basis of primary (e.g., 2:7*) and secondary refrains (1:4*; 2:4*;

7
*
13
14
277
E.g., 3:611* and 8:614* seem problematic in context, though they do exhibit some thematic links
with other segments of the Song.
278
Eissfeldt (Old Testament, 48990) considers approximately twenty-five separate songs or poems to
be the right assumption; Franz Landsberger, on the other hand, is persuaded that the number is far,
far greater than this (Poetic Units Within the Song of Songs, JBL 73 [1955] 21516).
*
7
until it is ready!
etc.), but a hypothetical reconstruction of the sequence of the text greatly weakens his case.
279
A
more detailed stylistic and structural analysis has been presented by J. Cheryl Exum. Her
methodology consists of the isolation of poetic units, the examination of the form and
stylistic characteristics of each poem, and the establishment of parallels among the poems.
280

Refrains and repetitions provide the major criteria she uses to identify six individual poems,
which form three paired sets: 1:22:6* with 8:414*; 2:73:5* with 5:26:3*; and 3:65:1* with

*
4
279
Joseph Angnieux, Structure du Cantique des Cantiques en chants encadrs par des refrains
alternants, ETL 41 (1965) 96112. Cf. also Joseph Angnieux, Les trois portraits du Cantique des
Cantiques. tude de critique littraire, ETL 42 (1966) 58286; and Le Cantique des Cantiques en huits
chants refrains alternants. Essai de reconstitution du texte primitif avec une introduction et des notes
critiques, ETL 44 (1968) 87140.
280
J. Cheryl Exum, A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs, ZAW 85 (1973) 49.
*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
8
9
10

11
12
13
14
15
16
17
*
4
5
6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
13
14

*
7
until it is ready!
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
1
2
3
4
5
until it is ready!

*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
1

*
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
10
6:48:3*. In her view, such a sophisticated structure rules out the possibility that the Song can be
considered a haphazard collection of love poetry Whether or not Exum has correctly identified

*
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
banners?
11
12
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
the larger structure of the work, the strength of her analysis is a perceptive description of the
Songs literary artistry, involving such devices as repetition, paronomasia, and chiasmus. A brief
review cannot do justice to the cumulative effect of her arguments, but attention to two important
parts of her case for structure will suffice to indicate the possibilities and limitations of the
approach.
Recognition of parallelism between 2:73:5* and 5:26:3* is the starting point for Exums
determination of the Songs literary architecture.
281
These textual segments are indeed the most
convincing examples of larger, composite poems within the work.
282
Both of them feature a call
to the woman (2:814*; 5:26a*) and they share the predominant theme of seeking/finding (3:1

281
Exum, Analysis, 4959.
282
The present commentary understands 5:26:3* to form a major unit, created by dialogue between
the woman and the Daughters.
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
5*; 5:6b6:3*). Exum understands the adjuration in 2:7* to be a distinct unit, forming an inclusio
with 3:5*. However, it seems difficult to separate 2:7* from what precedes it, and so also when

*
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
1
2
to gather lilies.
3
*
5
until it is ready!
the lines are repeated in 8:34* (where Exum again assigns the verses to different units). She
considers 2:6* and 8:3* to be a concluding refrain, whereas the adjuration in 2:7* and 8:4* is
deemed an opening refrain. Moreover, in the section 5:6b6:3*, only the initial part (5:6b8*) is
thematically parallel to 3:15*. The question that follows in 5:9* is contrived, providing
opportunity for the woman to praise the mans physical charms (the waf in 5:1016*), while a
second question enables her to respond that she has never really lost her lover (6:13*).
On the basis of supposed parallelism between 2:73:5* and 5:26:3*, Exum proposes to
identify another pair of parallel poems in 3:65:1* and 6:48:3*.
283
The first of these poems is
basically comprised of three sub-units: a description of the procession of Solomon (3:611*); a
waf describing the woman (4:111*); and an extended garden simile that forms the poems

*
3
4
*
6
*
4
*
6
7
8
283
Exum, Analysis, 6170.
*
1
climax (4:125:1*). Already here it is difficult to discern a unified poem: the juxtaposition of the
vision of Solomons procession with the waf and similes is simply too jarring. The supposed
components of the parallel poem are even more difficult to comprehend as a unity: a song of
admiration, spoken by the man (6:410*, borrowing from the waf in 4:13*) is followed by

2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
10
11
*
4
5
6
7
8
some enigmatic verses (6:1112*), a waf about the woman (7:17*[6:137:6*]), an
announcement of the mans desire for her (7:810a*[79a*]), and a concluding response from

9
10
banners?
*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
*
7
8
9
*
7
the woman (7:10b[9b]8:3*). These disparate elements do not form a convincing sequence in
themselves, nor are they conspicuously parallel to the units identifiable in 3:65:1*. Such
judgment admittedly emphasizes form-critical considerations and thematic development, rather
than the rhetorical features that are the chief signals in Exums discernment of coherent literary
structure.
These remarks by no means refute the case Exum makes for the Songs artistic design, but
they do illustrate the difficulties encountered in detailed rhetorical analysis. The problem is to
determine whether or not minute stylistic features are sure signs of structure, assessing them in
light of other factors, such as seemingly incongruous content and lack of coherent sequence,
which weigh against literary unity.
Another noteworthy attempt to discern an overall literary design in the text of the Song has
been offered by William Shea.
284
His analysis is based on two key observations: an A:B:A

8
9
*
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
284
William H. Shea, The Chiastic Structure of the Song of Songs, ZAW 92 (1980) 37895. Cf. the chiastic
arrangement of balanced pairs of poems proposed by Edwin C. Webster, Patterns in the Song of
Songs, JSOT 22 (1982) 7393.
arrangement of material in biblical literature; and supposed chiastic relationship between the two
halves of the Song (with 1:22:2* corresponding to 8:614*; 2:317* to 7:11[10]8:5*; and 3:1

*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
*

6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
13
14
*
3
4
5
6
7
until it is ready!
8
9
10

11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
*
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
4
5
4:16* to 5:17:10[9]*). As Shea understands it, the A:B:A pattern may be represented by the

*
1
2
3
4
5
until it is ready!
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5

*
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
sequence prose, poetry, prose (as in Job); or by a content sequence of instructions, proverbs,
instructions (as in Proverbs, but omitting three appendices in 8:614*). In Sheas treatment of the
Song, however, the A:B:A pattern must be identified solely on the basis of the quantity of lines
in major poetic segments. It is difficult to see how so many diverse literary phenomena in
different works can usefully be comprehended by such a general scheme or, in any case, what
support this scheme provides for the literary coherence of the Song. The chiastic arrangement
posited by Shea is also problematic. For example, he supposes 1:22:2* to have 8:614* as its
chiastic counterpart; within these two larger segments, 1:27* is said to correspond to 8:1214*.
But what are the specific links between these internal units? In both, the woman is speaking and
expressing a desire. The term brm (companions) appears in 1:7* and 8:13*, while 1:6*

*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
*
12
13
14
*
7
and 8:11* refer to a vineyard. Finally, the reference to Daughters of 1:5* is supposed to have
a counterpart in the feminine plural participle of 8:13*, although M attests a singular form
(hayyebet [dweller, inhabitant]).
285
These data seem much too thin and loosely related to
support a claim of intentional chiastic correspondence between the units in which they appear.
There are similar problems with the remainder of Sheas analysis. Chiastic relationships are
strained; alleged correspondences seem to lack the thematic and verbal links needed to sustain a
viable sense of literary structure.
Several factors contribute to the diversity of views among critics who argue that the Song
exhibits a dramatic structure based upon dialogue. There is, first, disagreement regarding the
number of speakers and the specific lines that are to be assigned to them. The present
commentary recognizes only two main characters who speak, a woman and a man; other
speaking parts, such as the Daughters of Jerusalem, are minor.
286
By and large, context suffices
to identify the lines spoken by the man and the woman (especially since Hebrew differentiates
gender in second and third person pronouns and verb forms), but difficulties remain. The most
questionable passages are the following: 1:24* (where an abrupt change of speakers occurs);
8;8 (probably spoken by the woman rather than the Daughters); the refrain in 2:7*, 3:5*, and
8:4* (probably spoken by the woman); 3:611*; 5:1b*; 6:10*; 6:1112* (with an obviously

*
13
*
11
*
5
Solomon.
285
Shea presumably revocalizes to read hayybt (cf. E), but he gives no account of other departures
from the text of the verse in M, which this reading would necessitate.
286
See the remarks on literary fiction and characterization in the Song, pp. 8085.
corrupt text in v 12*); 7:16*[6:137:5*] (in which a group addresses the Shulammite); and
8:5*. Allowing for uncertainties, a substantially larger number of lines must be attributed to the
woman than to the male speaker.
287

A more serious difficulty in arguing for a dialogical structure of the Song is posed by
apparent lack of continuity at several points in the text, where there are sudden shifts of scene,
topic, and ostensible speaker. For example, it is not clear how the lines describing Solomons
procession in 3:611* link up with the womans account of her search for her lover in 3:15*.
Again, in 2:813* the woman describes the visit of the man to her house and his invitation to a
tryst; but this is followed in 2:14* by his address to her as if she were hidden in a rocky mountain

*
12
*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
287
Donald Broadribb (Thoughts on the Song of Solomon, Abr-Nahrain 3 [196162] 18) attributes to the
woman 118 of the 207 poetic lines he counts in the Song.
*
14
area (cf. 4:17* with 4:8*). Sequence is particularly dubious in 8:814*, which may comprise
three fragments (vv 810*, 1112*, 1314*).
288
Difficulties of this kind have led many
commentators to claim that the Song is an anthology of many disparate love poems, written by
several hands and in different historical periods.
Although it seems perilous to argue that an intricate compositional design can be recognized
in the Song, conspicuous elements of dialogue may be used to distinguish major literary
divisions. A fuller justification for dialogical structure is given in the sections of commentary,
but a sequential sketch of the Songs contents is appropriate here.
1:1*. Superscription.
1:26*. Here the woman is the key figure and apparent speaker; the subject is her yearning
for her absent lover. In referring to the man, she switches from third person to second person

*
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
13
14
288
Cf. Robert (308), who aptly termed these verses appendices.
*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
(enallage) and perhaps associates others with herself (we, the maidens of 1:3*?). In vv 56*
she offers an apology for herself to the Daughters of Jerusalem, explaining why she has been
darkened by the sun. This explanation introduces the theme of the vineyard (i.e., the woman
herself and her disposition of her own person). There is only a loose connection between vv 24*
and 56*.
1:72:7*. The woman is still speaking in 1:7*, but now to the man who is certainly present.
He answers her inquiry (v 8*) and bursts into a song of admiration (vv 911*), which in turn

6
*
3
*
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
1
2
evokes from her lines describing him, in the third person, as the source of her pleasure (vv 12
14*). Then the two lovers participate in a dialogue of mutual admiration (1:1517*; 2:14*); at
the end of the dialogue, the woman again refers to the man in the third person, as she describes
their tryst. She now proclaims her love-sickness, asking for sustenance (2:5*). The unit
concludes with her description of their embrace and an adjuration to the Daughters of Jerusalem
(which becomes a refrain; cf. 8:34* and also 3:5* and 5:8*).

3
4
5
*
15
16
17
*
1
2
3
4
*
5
*
2:817*. The dialogue in this section does not run smoothly, but there appears to be a
deliberate inclusio (gazelle or young stag) in vv 9* and 17*.
289
Hence the whole can be
considered a unit, a reminiscence by the woman of her lovers visit. She recalls his animated
arrival at her home, his invitation (the poem on spring in vv 1013*), his request and her
coquettish reply (vv 1415*), and her welcome to his visit (vv 1617*).
3:111*. A new section begins with two units that have very little connection with each
other, except that both end with an address to the Daughters (vv 15* and 611*). The first unit

8
289
See Roland E. Murphy, Cant 2:817*A Unified Poem? Melanges bibliques et orientaux en
lhonneur de M. Mathias Delcor (ed. Andr Caquot et al.; AOAT 215; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker;
Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1985) 30510.
*
1
2
3
4
5
until it is ready!
6
7
8
night.
9
10
11
forms a doublet with 5:28*; the theme is the presence/absence of the man, and the search made
for him by the woman. She finds him in 3:4*, but in chapter 5 the door is opened to further
dialogue (contrast 3:5* with 5:8*). A second unit combines a description of a procession of
Solomons litter on the day of his marriage with an invitation to the Daughters to gaze upon
him. It is not clear who speaks these lines (vv 611*), which give the impression of being a
separate poem. In the context, the mention of Solomon is to be interpreted in line with the fiction
of the lover as king (cf. 1:4*, 12*; 6:89*; 7:6*).
4:15:1*. The section begins with a waf, in which the man describes the physical charms of
the woman (4:17*). This is followed, first, by the mans invitation to her to come from her

*
4
*
12
*
8
9
*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
inaccessible place (Lebanon, v 8*), and then by a poem of admiration, in praise of her (vv 9
16a*). She replies to his invitation with an invitation of her own, picking up on the theme of the

5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
*
9
10
11
garden (v 16b*); his response is an affirmation that he has indeed come to his garden (5:1a*).
The section closes with an address, by an unidentified voice, urging the lovers to enjoy
themselves (5:1b*). (Catchwords that unite the lines of this section are noted in the commentary.
However, it must be confessed that the dialogical structure here seems somewhat contrived; 4:1
7*, 8*, 911*, and 1216* could originally have been separate poems.)

12
13
14
spices
15
16
*
16
*
9
10
11
*
12
13
14
spices
5:26:3*. Poems representing several different genres comprise this section, but they make
good sense in terms of a sequence of dialogue between the woman and the Daughters. She
begins by recounting to them a nocturnal experience with her lover; the theme is finding/not
finding (5:28*; cf. 3:15*). Appropriately, the Daughters reply by asking for a description of
the lost lover (v 9*), and she launches into a waf about him (vv 1016*). The interest of the
Daughters is quickened by her description; they wish to seek him with you (6:1*). But to this
the woman gives triumphant response that he is in his gardeni.e., he is not really lost but
always with her (6:23*; cf. 2:16* and 7:11*[10*]). The small refrain of mutual possession in
6:3* closes the section.
6:412*. The man is the speaker in the initial unit (vv 410*). He begins with an expression
of his admiration for the woman (v 4*), which develops into a waf (vv 57*, borrowing from

15
16
*
10
*
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
banners?
11
4:1b3b*), and concludes by boasting that even queens and concubines of the royal harem
acknowledge the womans unique beauty (vv 810*). The expression awe-inspiring as visions
in vv 4b* and 10b* may form an inclusio. The lines in 6:1112* are a problem: they do not seem
to have any obvious connection with what precedes, and the identity of the speaker is unclear;
but it is no easier to associate them with the following section.

12
*
4
*
5
6
frankincense.
7
*
8
9
10
*
4
of warriors.
7:1[6:13]8:4*. Dialogue between bystanders and the woman in 7:12a[6:137:1a]* serves
to introduce a waf about the woman (vv 2b7*[1b6*]). It is reasonable to identify the man,

*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2

*
13
1
of a master hand.
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
rather than the bystanders, as speaking the waf, because he clearly expresses his yearning for
the woman in the following lines (vv 810a*[79a*]). She apparently interrupts him in v
10b*[9b*] with her positive response and then recites the formula of mutual possession (v
11*[10*]; cf. 6:3*). Next she issues him an invitation and a promise (7:12[11]8:2*). The section
concludes in 8:34* with a repetition of the refrain of 2:67*, addressed to the Daughters of

6
*
9
*
10
*
11
12
13
1
2
*
6
7
until it is ready!
Jerusalem. After the passionate exchange between the lovers that precedes it, the refrain seems
somewhat anticlimactic and artificial.
8:514*. These verses exhibit little coherence and lend support to the claim that the Song is
simply a collection of disparate love poems.
290
Echoes of earlier lines can be noted: for example,
v 5a* repeats 3:6a*. Verses 810* apparently hearken back to 1:6b* (sons of my mother),
giving the womans response to the plans her brothers have made for her. Verses 1314* may
preserve a snatch of conversation between the man and the woman.

*
5
6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
13
14
290
Cf. Robert, 308; his characterization of 8:814* is also applicable to 8:57*.
*
6
In sum, elements of dialogue seem to provide the strongest evidence of sequential
arrangement of poetic units within the Song and thus also suggest the works overall coherence.
Our emphasis on dialogical structure intends only to comprehend the text in its received form,
leaving largely unresolved questions of original composition (i.e., authorship, dates, settings, and
functions of individual poems within the corpus).
6. Aspects of Composition and Style
Form-critical analysis, as we have seen in the preceding section, sheds significant light on the
genres of love poetry that comprise the Song but provides little help in addressing issues of
overall literary structure and compositional integrity. Rhetorical criticism brings these issues into
sharper focus, enabling us to discern a remarkable coherence of literary style and language
throughout the Song. An argument in favor of common authorship of most, if not all, of the
poetry included in the work is especially advanced when we look at the Songs characteristic
perspective on human love, as well as to its peculiar imagery, vocabulary, and thematic topoi.
A. Language
With the partial exception of Psalm 45, which celebrates a royal marriage and is presumably the
work of a court poet, the Hebrew Bible has not preserved any composition with which the
content of the Song can be closely compared.
291
There are indeed some interesting similarities of
vocabulary and theme between these two works.
292
However, Psalm 45 cannot really be
classified as love poetry. The psalms protagonists, a king and a queen, are extolled and
instructed by the poet; they do not address each other with words of praise, delight, and yearning
as do the male and female speakers in the Song. Nor for all of its richness of imagery does Psalm
45 touch on the subjective feelings and aspirations of the royal couple. Their emotions can at
best be inferred from the external portraits the poet sketches.
One would expect Hebrew love poetry to have a distinctive style and its own characteristic
vocabulary. The Songs uniquely vivid depictions of a loving relationship between a man and a
woman supports such a view. The distinctiveness of this poetry can be appreciated by comparing
its emphases with the more familiar perspectives and language of biblical wisdom literature.

291
Cf. the assessment of Oswald Loretz, who claims that an allegorical reading of Psalm 45 is already
indicated by textual glosses in vv 7* and 12* (Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische
Liebeslied. Untersuchungen zur Stichometrie und Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45.
Psalms [AOAT 14/1; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971]esp. 6970). A
messianic interpretation is given by Raymond Jacques Tournay, Les affinits du Ps. xlv avec le Cantique
des Cantiques et leur interprtation messianique, Congress Volume, Bonn 1962 (VTSup 9; Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1963) 168212.
292
Cf. Broadribb (Thoughts, 2425), who identifies some twenty-four points of contact, including the
following: r (song) is used in the titles of both works; Cant 3:11* attests to a conjunction of
coronation and wedding, which is the focus of the entire psalm; harb al-yrk (each with his
sword upon his thigh) in Cant 3:8* and gr-arbk al-yrk (Gird your sword upon *your+ thigh)
in Ps 45:4*; and shared attestation of relatively uncommon terms such as hlt (aloes), brm
(companions), ketem (gold), and n (lily).
Love and the Natural Order. Biblical sages and the love poetry of the Song share an intense
interest in the created order. However, the former generally looked at their physical environs in
an objective manner, while the poetry of the Song relishes the subjective dimensions of nature.
293

For example, the elaborate divine speeches in Job 3841 invoke dramatic natural imagery to
depict the preeminent wisdom and providence of God, the creator: the raging sea, kept within
bounds by divine decree; the cosmic sources of light and meteorological phenomena; the fixed
orders of the constellations; and a bestiary that includes not only the fleet-footed ostrich but the
monstrous forms of Behemoth and Leviathan.
294
What count here are divine power and design,
so splendid that they dwarf the capacity of humankind to understand fully its environment or to
control it. The phenomena of nature provoke amazement, but they also contain valuablethough
not always welcometheological lessons that human beings can deduce through diligent
scrutiny. Similarly, the sage known as Qohelet is presented as an astute observer of the natural
order. In the marvelous poem that begins the book, he directs attention to the endless succession
of human generations and to the relentless movements of sun, wind, and water, although only to

293
Cf. Roland E. Murphy, The Hebrew Sage and Openness to the World, Christian Actions and
Openness to the World (ed. Joseph Papin; Villanova: Villanova University, 1970) 21944.
294
An illuminating discussion of the nature imagery in these chapters of Job is offered by Robert Alter,
The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985) 85110.
support his contention that all human industry is futile, vanity (Eccl 1:211*; cf. 3:1015*,
etc.).
295
It is typical of Qohelets melancholic wisdom to warn that even observation of nature

*
2
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3
What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun?
4
A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever.
5
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hurries to the place where it rises.
6
The wind blows to the south, and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its
circuits the wind returns.
7
All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they
continue to flow.
8
All things are wearisome; more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, or the ear
filled with hearing.
9
What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new
under the sun.
10
Is there a thing of which it is said, See, this is new? It has already been, in the ages before us.
11
The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to
come by those who come after them.
*
10
I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.
11
He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into
their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
12
I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they
live;
13
moreover, it is Gods gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.
14
I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from
it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.
15
That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.
can be overdone (Eccl 11:4*), thereby offering an implicit critique of more traditional
practitioners of the sapiential approach to life. The latter delighted in articulating what they
learned from nature: the extraordinary diligence of the ant, for example (Prov 6:68*), or the
insight that small, if not beautiful, is at least not a handicap to becoming wise (Prov 30:2428*).
The Song does not scrutinize nature in this scholastic manner.
296
Lessons from the natural
order are still heard and appreciated, but more as musical accompaniment to the inner stirrings of
a human heart. The difference is between knowing about and feeling, between diligently
analyzing and sensually participating in the texture of life. The Songs side of this perspectival

295
Cf. Edwin M. Good, The Unfilled Sea: Style and Meaning in Ecclesiastes 1:211*, Israelite Wisdom:
Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien (ed. John G. Gammie et al.; Missoula:
Scholars, 1978) 5973; and, in the same volume, Hans-Jrgen Hermisson, Observations on the Creation
Theology in Wisdom, 4357.
*
4
Whoever observes the wind will not sow; and whoever regards the clouds will not reap.
*
6
Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise.
7
Without having any chief or officer or ruler,
8
it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest.
*
24
Four things on earth are small, yet they are exceedingly wise:
25
the ants are a people without strength, yet they provide their food in the summer;
26
the badgers are a people without power, yet they make their homes in the rocks;
27
the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;
28
the lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in kings palaces.
296
Cf. Angel Gonzles, El lenguaje de la naturaleza en el Cantar de los Cantares, EstBib 25 (1966) 242
82.
contrast is illustrated by the poem in 2:1013*. The observations that winters grip has been
broken, that the sights and sounds of nature have signaled the onset of spring, are made to
embellish an invitation: the season when love beckons most urgently has arrived.
Throughout the Song, references to the physical world abound. Indeed, the poetry presents a
far more detailed onomasticon of natural phenomena than any work of traditional wisdom
preserved in the canonical and deuterocanonical scriptures. Here are invoked a panoply of trees,
fruits, flowers, and exotic spices (e.g., 1:17*; 2:13*, 13*, 15*; 4:1314*; 5:13*; 6:23*, 11*;
7:9*[8*], 1314*[1213*]); birds and beasts (e.g., 1:9*, 15*; 2:9*, 12*, 17*; 4:12*, 5*, 8*;

*
17
*
1
2
3
*
13
*
13
14
spices
*
8

*
8
*
12
13
*
12
13
*
9
*
15
*
12
heard in our land.
*
5:1112*); stones, wind, and water (e.g., 4:1516*; 5:2*, 1415*; 8:7*); times, seasons, and
places (e.g., 1:7*; 2:11*; 4:6*; 5:2*; 6:4*, 10*; 7:5*[4*]). But what comes to the fore is the

1
2
*
5
*
11
12
*
15
16
*
14
15
cedars.
*
7
sensory delight that such varied phenomena provide and how experiencing them illuminates the
intimate pleasures of love. Hence emphasis falls not only on beauty that the eye beholds (e.g.,
1:1011*; 6:4*, 10*) but on the joys of tasting (e.g., 2:3*; 4:16*; 5:1*; 7:10*[9*]; 8:2*),
smelling (e.g., 1:3*; 4:1011*; 7:14*[13*]), hearing (2:14*; 8:13*), and touching (5:5*;
7:9*[8*]; 8:3*).

*
11
*
6
frankincense.
*
4
*
4
*
10
11
*
2
*
Contrasting attitudes toward natural existence are also evident, of course, in the ways that
wisdom literature and the Song deal with matters of human sexuality. In the book of Proverbs, as
generally elsewhere in biblical literature, women play secondary roles and are usually depicted
against a moral background that represents masculine values.
297
The point is well-illustrated by
the acrostic poem in Prov 31:1031*, which portrays the good wife who is hard to find. She is

13
*
13
*
5
297
Cf. the fine overview provided by Phyllis Bird, Images of Women in the Old Testament, Religion and
Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (ed. Rosemary Radford Ruether; New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) 4188.
*
10
A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
11
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
12
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
13
She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.
14
She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away.
15
She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant-girls.
16
She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
17
She girds herself with strength, and makes her arms strong.
18
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.
idealized, but in terms that bear no resemblance to the subjective idealizations of the womans
charms in the Song (e.g., 4:116*). What matters to the sage is neither the wifes gracefulness

19
She puts her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
20
She opens her hand to the poor, and reaches out her hands to the needy.
21
She is not afraid for her household when it snows, for all her household are clothed in crimson.
22
She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple.
23
Her husband is known in the city gates, taking his seat among the elders of the land.
24
She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes.
25
Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
nor her beauty, apparently not even in the eye of her husband: Charm is deceptive, and beauty is
an illusion (v 31a*). Praise for her is rather elicited on account of her sagacity in business
affairs, her industriousness at home and in the marketplace, her skill in managing the household,
and the acts of charity she performsall of which she does to enhance the wealth and reputation
of her husband. There are no innuendos of sexual enjoyment here, nor is love mentioned. The
measure of the good wife is her net worth (mikrh); for the man who is able to find and wed
her, she is like having an unlimited line of credit at the bank (v 10a*). A husband can expect to
gain wind-fall profits (ll, literally spoil, plunder) if he puts his trust in such a wife (v
11*).
Language similar to that employed in the Song does appear in the early chapters of Proverbs,
but the contrast is scarcely diminished. Physical allure and skill in love-making are traits of the
alien woman (zr, nkriyy) caricatured in Prov 7:527* (cf. also 5:20*).
298
The words of

10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
*
31
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the city gates.
*
5
that they may keep you from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.
6
For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice,
7
and I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the youths, a young man without sense,
entrapment that she speaks (7:1420*) seem to echo themes and motifs of the Song, but here,
interestingly, the erotic subtlety of the Songs language is lost. Like a common harlot (cf. vv 10

8
passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house
9
in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.
10
Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.
11
She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home;
12
now in the street, now in the squares, and at every corner she lies in wait.
13
She seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him:
14
I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;
15
so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!
16
I have decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen;
17
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
18
Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love.
19
For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.
20
He took a bag of money with him; he will not come home until full moon.
*
20
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
298
Cf. Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom and Eros in Proverbs 19, CBQ 50 (1988) 600603.
*
14
I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;
15
16
I have decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen;
17
I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
13*), she has come out to search for and find a lover (v 15*; cf. Cant 3:14*; 5:6*). Her bed
has already been prepared for the tryst, perfumed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon (v 15*; cf.
Cant 4:14*; 5:5*). She promises a night-long bout of intoxicating love (v 18*; cf. Cant 7:12

18
19
For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.
20
He took a bag of money with him; he will not come home until full moon.
*
10
Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.
11
She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home;
12
now in the street, now in the squares, and at every corner she lies in wait.
13
She seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him:
*
15
*
6
*
14
spices
*
18
13*[1112*]), becauseas we only learn at the end of her speech (vv 1920*)her husband is
out of town on a business trip. In short, her interest in sex is lascivious; it is an invitation to
adultery and the way to perdition (vv 2127*). In Prov 5:1819*, to be sure, marital sex is

*
11
12
*
11
12
*
19
a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always
by her love.
20
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
*
21
With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.
22
Right away he follows her, and goes like an ox to the slaughter, or bounds like a stag toward the trap
23
until an arrow pierces its entrails. He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost
him his life.
24
And now, my children, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
25
Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.
26
for many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.
27
Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.
commended in somewhat similar terms; the wife is even described as a lively hind, a graceful
doe, which reminds us of language in the Song (e.g., 4:5*), though in this case the primary
concern is to praise her fidelity to the husband and to encourage him to remain faithful to her.
In the poetry of the Song there is no such moralizing. Human sexual love is treated as
something beautiful and desirable in itself. Perhaps the sages eventually learned this lesson, too,
if the aphorisms in 8:67* (Strong as death is love) are to be attributed to them.
299
But
nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible does the intimate pleasureat once exquisitely naive and
profoundof mutual love between man and woman come to expression as in the Song.
Gillis Gerleman makes an interesting observation in this regard, to support his
characterization of the Song as lyric poetry that expresses the emotions of the poet.
300
He notes
that adjectives appear in the text only about forty times, a proportional representation generally
in accord with biblical Hebrew style. But contrary to the norm in biblical Hebrew literature,
relatively few of the adjectives employed in the Song are impersonal (such as terms for size,
shape, color, and number). Most carry affective meanings and are used quite sparingly
elsewhere: ypeh yp, beautiful, with eleven occurrences (1:8*, 15*, 16*; 2:10*, 13*; 4:1*,

*
18
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19
by her love.
299
Cf. Nicolas J. Tromp, Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8, 6c7b: text, character, message and import, La
Sagesse de lAncien Testament (ed. Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979) 94.
300
Gerleman, 53.
*
16
*
10
*
1
7*; 5:9*; 6:1*, 4*, 10*); nweh nw, lovely, pleasant, used four times (1:5*; 2:14*; 4:3*;
6:4*); b bm [min], goodly, better, more pleasing [than], attested three times (1:2*, 3*;
7:10*[9*]; cf. 4:10*); ymm, awe-inspiring, appearing twice (6:4*, 10*); as well as single
occurrences of nm, pleasant, delightful (1:16*), mtq, sweet (2:3*), and rb,
pleasant (2:14*).
So strongly marked is the Songs perspective in comparison with views attested elsewhere in
scripture that one is pressed to ask if the author may have been a woman; and surely she was, at
least in part.
301
It is the female protagonist, rather than the male, who speaks the majority of the
lines, and she reveals her feelings more fully than does he.
302

Metaphorical Description, Comparison, and Allusion. Nothing is more characteristic of the
Songs exuberant portrait of human love than the wealth of metaphorical imagery it draws upon
to depict the physical charms, delights, and desires of the lovers themselves. Nor has any other
aspect of the poetry given more enjoyment or presented greater challenge to interpreters, ancient
and modern alike.
Not infrequently, comparisons take the form of simple juxtaposition of subjects and
metaphorical predicates, as in the following examples: emen traq mek, flowing perfume,
your name (1:3*); naik ynm, your eyes [are] doves (1:15*; 4:1*); n baelet
harn annat hamqm, I [am] a flower of Sharon, a lily of the valleys (2:1*);
ipttw s annm notpt mr obr, his lips, lilies that drip flowing myrrh (5:13*).

*
7
*
3
301
Cf. Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978) 145; and
Athalya Brenner, The Israelite Woman; Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Literature (The Biblical
Seminar; Sheffield: JSOT Press/University of Sheffield, 1985) 4650.
302
See above, p. 64 n. 287. Foxs observation is cogent (309): The Song is her song, and there is no
scene from which she is absent. All events are narrated from her point of view, though not always in
her voice, whereas from the boys angle of vision we know little besides how he sees her.
*
1
Somewhat more common, though, is the simile proper, which prefixes the prepositional
comparative k- to the predicate: kpela hrimmn raqqtk mibba ad lammtk, Like a
cut of pomegranate, your cheek behind your veil (4:3*); nw kynm, his eyes, like doves
(5:12*); and, more elaborately, ks s ann bn hahm kn ra yt bn habbnt, As a lily
among thorns, so is my friend among women [daughters] (2:2*). This formal difference, it
should be noted, does not enable us to distinguish between literal (e.g., n arret, I am
blackish [1:6]*) and metaphorical descriptions. In a number of instances, generally where the
metaphor is further developed, forms of the verb dm (to be like, resemble [Qal], to
compare [Piel]) are used to make the object of the comparison explicit: lsust brikeb
parh dimmtk rayt , To a mare of Pharaohs chariots I compare you, my friend
(1:9*); dmeh dd lib lper hayylm , My lover is like a gazelle, or a young
stag (2:9*); sb dmh-lk dd lib , Turn, my lover; be like a gazelle (2:17*;
cf. 8:14*); zt qmtk dmt ltmr , Your very stature is like a palm tree
(7:8*[7*]). Extensions may also be attached to the basic metaphor by use of the preposition im
(with), as in 4:1314*.
In most of the Songs metaphors and similes, the basis of comparison (tertium
comparationis) between the subject or referent and the selected image seems straightforward but
not necessarily or even typically one-dimensional. Color and form are involved in many

*
12
*
2
*
14
*
7
*
7
instances.
303
For example, the man likens the womans lips to a scarlet thread and her veiled
cheeks to slices of pomegranate (4:3*); she in turn describes his hair as black as a raven
(5:11*) and compares his legs to alabaster columns (5:14*). Even in essentially representational
comparisons, however, a poetic playfulness is often evident, nuancing realism with suggestions
of voluptuousness, unusual vitality, gracefulness, and the like.
304
When the woman compares
herself to the tents of Qedar and Solomons pavilions (1:5*) she takes advantage of the color
of her sun-darkened skin to emphasize her own unusual beauty. The comparison of her hair to a
flock of goats apparently has in view both color (black) and texture or flowing movement (4:1*).
Perhaps for ancient oriental as well as modern western ears the similitude between the ordered
whiteness of the womans teeth and rows of newly washed sheep intends to sound a pleasant
note of whimsy (4:2*). Her exotic, ornamented splendor certainly comes to the fore in playful
fashion when the man likens her to a mare of Pharaohs chariots, outfitted with beads and
golden pendants (1:910*). The metaphor of the palm with date-clusters is intelligible enough as

303
Especially so in the wafs (poems of descriptive praise of a lovers physique): 4:17*; 5:1016*; 6:4
7*; 7:17 *[6:137:6*]. Although Gillis Gerleman recognized the affective character of the Songs
metaphors in these texts, he argued that the specific imagery of the wafs reflects the particular artistic
traditions of form and color used in ancient Egyptian statuary (Die Bildersprache des Hohenliedes und
die altgyptische Kunst, ASTI 1 [1962] 2430; and his commentary, esp. 5359 and 22427). An
important response, emphasizing the presentational rather than representational character of the
imagery, was offered by Richard N. Soulen, The Wafs of the Song of Songs and Hermeneutic, JBL 86
(1967) 18390. Cf. Fox, 274: since the Egyptian love poets themselves did not take their imagery from
Egyptian art, it is most unlikely that the poet of Canticles would have turned to it as a prime source of
imagery.
*
14
304
Cf. Morris *Moshe+ Hirsch Segal, The Song of Songs, VT 12 (1962) 480: *The Song+ abounds in
playfulness, in gentle raillery and fun, mingled with touching sentiments of love and tenderness.
Recently, Enrica Salvaneschi (Cantico dei Cantici: Interpretatio ludica [Genova: Melangolo, 1982]) has
moved beyond literal analysis of the Songs metaphorical terminology in an effort to identify the
metalanguage of the poetry; she subjects several terms to a playful analysis (interpretatio ludica)
within the biblical range of meanings.
*
2
*
a representation of the womans full-bosomed stateliness, but the sense becomes more explicitly
erotic when the man expresses his intention to climb the tree and take hold of its branches in
order to enjoy its choice fruits (7:89*[78*]).
305

9
10
*
7
8
*
7
8
305

Descriptions in the Songs wafs of the lower human torso and genitalia use subtle imagery that seems
to heighten the erotic effect. The pertinent region of the female anatomy is described as follows
(7:3*[2*]):
surrounded with lilies.
For comparable, but more explicit, imagery in the Sumerian love poems, see above, pp. 5455. The
Songs terse depiction of the male genital region in 5:14b* employs some difficult terminology: m w
eet n mullepet sapprm. The first term usually refers in biblical Hebrew to internal organs of
digestion and procreation; its use here for external anatomy seems to mean belly or more specifically
loins (cf. Pope, 543). While es et is a hapax in biblical Hebrew (cf. the verb, connoting smoothness, in
Jer 5:28*), rabbinic sources understood the term to refer to a smooth bar, pillar or column, e.g.,
In more than a few instances, however, the tertium comparationis is not immediately obvious
or seems to involve likenesses that strike the literal-minded modern reader as comical, even
grotesque. An often noted case in point is the overburdened metaphor for the womans neck in
4:4*:
Like Davids tower, your neck,
built in courses;
A thousand shields hang upon it,
all the weapons of warriors.
Such exaggerated simile fueled allegorical interpretation in earlier times.
306
Some recent critics
have supposed that the comparison means to portray not the visual appearance of the womans
garlanded neck but her proud and pure inaccessibility;
307
others suggest that the physical

comparable to the shape of a scroll (cf. Cant. Rab. 5:14.2 [Simon, 246]; and Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary
of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature [New York: Pardes,
1950+ 1128). Rather than covered with sapphires or the like, the final two words may be literally
rendered ensconced in lapis lazuli. With the translation that these readings yield (His loins, a shaft of
ivory, ensconced in lapis lazuli) one may compare the following praise of male virility in one of the
Sumerian love poems (Jacobsen, Harps, 98 *Tavern Sketch+):
O my pure pillar, my pure pillar
sweet are your charms
Pillar of alabaster set in lapis lazuli
sweet are your charms.
306
E.g., Cant. Rab. 4:4.9 (Simon, 196): Just as a mans neck is the highest part of him, so the Temple was
the highest part of the world. And just as most ornaments are hung round the neck, so the priests were
attached to the Temple, the Levites were attached to the Temple. Recent literary criticism may be in
process of rediscovering and appreciating anew the affective, allusive aspects of the Songs language
and rich poetic imagery which gave rise to early Christian and Jewish allegorical readings. In this regard,
see Albert Cook, The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs (Bloomington/London:
Indiana University, 1968) 99151, with appreciative attention given to the work of Paul Claudel. See now
also Harold Fisch, Poetry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation (Bloomington/Indianapolis:
Indiana University, 1988) 80103 (with the section entitled, interestingly, Song of Solomon: The
Allegorical Imperative); note esp. 95: It seems that there is no way to avoid interpretation and that
interpretationespecially in a poem so dreamlike in its symbolismwill tend to partake of the nature of
allegory. This is true of all poetry and of all interpretations of poems. It is more compellingly true of the
Song of Solomon. If the ancients had not already taken this path, modern literary critics would certainly
have felt obliged to do so.
307
For the development of this approach, see Thorlief Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek (tr.
Jules L. Moreau; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 7684. Keel (Metaphorik, 3339 and esp. 38) pursues
proportions of the metaphor are mythological and hence only intelligible if the female in
question is a goddess.
308

Similitudes using natural imagery are not always transparently representational in meaning.
The garden and vineyard metaphors for the woman (e.g., 4:1216*) convey a sense of her
blossoming sexuality and, at least in part, are euphemistic. Comparison of the man to a gazelle
or a young stag suggests his youthful beauty and swiftness but also perhaps his untamed
freedom as far as the woman is concerned (2:89*; 8:14*).
Hans-Peter Mller discerns what he calls semantic dissonance between referent and
physical imagery in many such cases; he argues that the tertium comparationis is aesthetic rather
than literal, with the poetic language having a magical function that seeks to affirm the illusive
spiritual bond between the realms of natural and human beauty.
309
In similar fashion, Othmar
Keel has recently proposed a dynamic interpretation of the Songs metaphorical comparisons,
requiring functional analysis of both the referents and the natural images invoked.
310
For

the same line and paraphrases the sense of the simile as follows: Unzugnglich wie der Davidsturm is
deine stolze Haltung (Inaccessible as Davids tower is your proud bearing).
308
Pope, 465: The size of the damsels neck stretches poetic hyperbole a bit as applied to a peasant lass
or any earthly creature. If the lady is divine, her proportions would not be abnormal.
*
8
9
309
Hans-Peter Mller, Vergleich und Metapher im Hohenlied (OBO 56; Freiburg Schweiz:
Universittsverlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). Cf. also Fox (27477 and 32830) who
draws upon the hermeneutical work of Colin Martindale and Paul Ricoeur, invoking the principle of
metaphoric distance in his analysis of the Songs more exaggerated comparisons (e.g., 7:35*[24*]).
According to this approach, the incongruent distance between the anatomical referent and the image
emphasizes the image itself; the cumulative effect of such images is to form a cohesive picture of a
self-contained world in which expressions of human love become transcendently real (32930). Cf.
now also Daniel Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical Poetry (SBLMS 39; Atlanta:
Scholars, 1989) 6168.
Keel Othmar Keel, Das Hohelied (ZBAT 18; Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1986).
310
Keel, Metaphorik; although he makes important use of Egyptian, Syrian, and Mesopotamian artistic
evidence to illuminate the Songs imagery, Keel argues that a Palestinian provenance for the
composition is supported by its use of geographical terms and references to Palestinian arts and crafts
(textiles in 1:5*; 4:3*; 7:6*[5*]; jewelry in 1:1011*; cf. also 5:1415* and 7:2*[l*]).
example, to grasp how human eyes are comparable to doves (1:15*; 4:1*; 5:12*) one must
recognize that in biblical usage the eye is not simply a static organ of sight but a mode of
emotional communication, here connoting glance. Moreover, since doves are associated
with love goddesses in ancient Near Eastern iconography, Keel argues that they function
metaphorically here as vehicles of ardor, which yields his paraphrastic translation: Your glances
are messengers of love.
311
Similarly, while comparison of the womans nose (ap) to a
(fortified) tower of Lebanon, looking toward Damascus (7:5*[4*]) seems grotesque if taken
literally,
312
Keel argues that the simile has to do not with the womans unusually large or
misshapen snout but her prideful carriage, haughtiness, teasing petulance, or the like.
313
A
considerably more elaborate decoding is needed to understand how her breasts are comparable to
two fawns, the twins of a gazelle, browsing among the lilies (4:5*). According to keel, this
complex metaphor pertains to the graceful movement of her young bosom but also evokes
iconographic images of gazelles and lilies, which together symbolize renewal of life, the triumph
of natural and human vitality over the power of death.
314
Even if the recent approaches of Mller,
Keel, and others are not always convincing in their specific interpretations, they encourage
modern critics to move beyond banal or woodenly literalistic interpretations of the Songs
enchanting images.
Peculiarities of Grammar and Lexicon. The Song displays an unusual profile of grammatical
and lexical features. It may be noted that these features are distributed fairly evenly throughout
the poetry; hence they provide no firm basis either for making distinctions among the individual
poemse.g., as regards provenance, date of composition, and authorshipor for identifying
likely editorial accretions to the corpus. Moreover, while individual features of the profile have
counterparts in earlier biblical Hebrew literature, their cumulative effect is to suggest
postexilic composition, and possibly as late as the end of the Persian period.
315

The Songs most striking grammatical peculiarity is regular use of the proclitic particle e-
el and, conversely, absence of the relative er, except for a singular occurrence in the
editorial superscription of 1:1*. Among the books of the Hebrew Bible, the total of thirty-two
occurrences of this proclitic in the Song is exceeded only by the sixty-seven attestations in
Ecclesiastes (where, however, er is also and even more extensively employed as a relative
marker). Earlier criticism seized upon the usage as an indication of Aramaic influence and a sign
of late composition or editing, especially since the particle is also well attested in Mishnaic
Hebrew.
316
Such judgments are rendered problematic by the ostensibly early testimony to the
particle in the Song of Deborah (Judg 5:7*) and by comparative Semitic evidence, which may

311
Keel, Metaphorik, 5362 and 14252 (figs. 3655).
312
So, e.g., Rudolph, 173.
313
Keel, Metaphorik, 33.
314
Keel, Metaphorik, 8188 and 16872 (figs. 8393).
315
Cf. Broadribb, Thoughts, 2933.
316
Segal, Song, 478 and 48485; and also Wagner, Aramaismen, 11011.
*
point to the presence in both the Song and Ecclesiastes of a north-Israelite dialect influenced by
Phoenician.
317
In general, however, the Songs nimble use of e- el finds its closest parallels in
postexilic Hebrew literature. In terms of function, the specific occurrences of the particle in the
Song may be classified as follows.
318

a) In combination with the preposition l, el is used to express possession (i.e., functioning as
does er l in the superscription, 1:1*): karm ell, My vineyard which is mine = My own
vineyard (1:6*; 8:12*); mit ellilmh, his litter which is Solomons = Solomons
litter (3:7*).
b) The particle appears as a relative pronoun to introduce clauses serving as descriptive
modifiers: eir-limm, with which his mother crowned him (3:11*); eggl mhar
gild, that stream down from Gilead (4:1*; 6:5*); s el min-hra, that come up from
the washing (4:2a*; 6:6a*); ekkullm matmt, all of them in pairs (4:2b*; 6:6b*);
bayym eyydubbar-bh, on the day that she will be spoken for (8:8*).

7
The peasantry prospered in Israel, they grew fat on plunder, because you arose, Deborah, arose as a
mother in Israel.
Judges 5:7 (NRSV)
317
Cf. Mitchell J. Dahood, Canaanite-Phoenician Influence in Qoheleth, Bib 33 (1952) 4445.
318
Cf. Broadribb, Thoughts, 3132 (but there is a disconcertingly large number of errors in the biblical
citations); and Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline (Toronto/Buffalo: University of Toronto,
2
1976) 7678.
*
12
*
7
*
5
*
c) When attached directly to nouns and pronouns, the particle may have a causal or resultative
sense (in either case functioning like the particle k in general Hebrew usage): al-tirn s en
arret ezpatn hames , Do not stare at me because I am blackish, for the sun has
burned me (1:6*); err niml-l, for my head is wet with dew (5:2*); ekkk
hibatn, that you adjure us so (5:9*); ehm hirhbn, for they disturb me (6:5*).
d) Related to the category above is a particular recitative usage, to introduce a quotation (cf.
s er, 1 Sam 15:20*): eolat ahb n, that I am sick with love! (5:8b*).
e) In a set expression, used by the woman to designate her lover, the particle is employed with
quasi-demonstrative force to nominalize or substantivize a verbal construction: ehb nap,
the one whom my soul loves (1:7*; 3:1*, 2*, 3*, 4*).

6
*
8
spoken for?
*
20
Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone on the mission on which the
Lord sent me, I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
1 Samuel 15:20 (NRSV)
*
1
*
2
*
3
f) Finally, in a significant number of cases the particle is construed with ad (cf. Aramaic ad-d
[Dan 7:4*, 9*, 11*; etc.]) in temporal statements: ad-ehammelek bimsibb, While the
king was in his enclosure (1:12*); ad ettap, until it [love] be ready (2:7*; 3:5*; 8:4*);
ad eyypa hayym, until the day breathes (2:17*; 4:6*); kima ebart mhem ad
emm t t e hb nap, I had hardly left them when I found him whom my soul
loves (3:4a*); ad-ehbtw el-bt imm, until I brought him to the house of my mother
(3:4b*).
Especially when one considers its modest length and repetitious character, the Song exhibits
an extraordinarily large number of uniquely attested terms (hapax legomena), as well as many
other words and forms that make only rare appearances elsewhere in biblical Hebrew literature.
Statistics Frederick Greenspahn compiled in a recent study indicate that among all books of the
Hebrew Bible the Song has the highest percentage of its total vocabulary comprised of absolute
hapax legomena (i.e., terms that are not only unique but apparently represent verbal roots
otherwise unattested in biblical Hebrew).
319
Greenspahn identifies a total of thirty-seven hapax

*
4
The first was like a lion and had eagles wings. Then, as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it
was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being; and a human mind
was given to it.
Daniel 7:4 (NRSV)
*
9
As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne, his clothing was white as
snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning
fire.
Daniel 7:9 (NRSV)
*
11
I watched then because of the noise of the arrogant words that the horn was speaking. And as I
watched, the beast was put to death, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire.
Daniel 7:11 (NRSV)
319
Frederick E. Greenspahn, Hapax Legomena in Biblical Hebrew: A Study of the Phenomenon and Its
Treatment Since Antiquity with Special Reference to Verbal Forms (SBLDS 74; Chico: Scholars, 1984) esp.
2329 and 18399. Note, however, the following corrections to his survey of the data: rpydh appears in
Cant 3:10* rather than 3:20* (197); the citation of rhyt for Cant 1:10* is erroneous (197; but correctly
listed as ryt, 186); the calculation of the Songs deviation from the biblical norm should be based on
thirty-seven rather than thirty-six actual hapax legomena (199).
legomena in the Song; in the sequential list that follows, the fourteen forms built on terms that he
classifies as absolute hapax legomena are prefixed with asterisks: arret (1:6*); nir
(1:6*); gdiyytaik (1:8*); lsst (1:9*); *rzm (1:10*); nquddt (1:11*); *ratn
(1:17*); *brtm (1:17*); *ktln (2:9*); harakkm (2:9*); *hasstw (2:11*);
hanninm (2:12*); hazzmr (2:12*); *paggh (2:13*); abqat (3:6*); *appiryn (3:9*);
rpdt (3:10*); rp (3:10*); tnnt (3:11*); *talpiyyt (4:4*); miawwrnaik
(4:9*); *karkm (4:14*); *annpm (5:3*); taltallm (5:11*); millt (5:12*); merqm
(5:13*); es et (5:14*); *gz (6:11*); ammq (7:2*[1*]); mmn (7:2*[1*]); hassahar

*
10
*
11
*
9
*
10
*
3
*
1
of a master hand.
*
(7:3*[2*]); *hammzeg (7:3*[2*]); sg (7:3*[2*]); *sansinnw (7:9*[8*]); dbb (7:10*);
hreqa (8:2*); *mitrappeqet (8:5*). At least reasonable sense can be made of the majority of
these hapax legomena, using internal evidence supplied by immediate context of usage (e..g,
congruity of theme and parallelism) together with renderings in the ancient versions and data
from cognate Semitic languages and literatures. In a few cases, however, translation remains
very uncertain or merely approximate; prime examples are: rzm (beads?) in 1:10*;
talpiyyt (courses [of a tower built of stones]?) in 4:4*; and taltallm (palm fronds?) in
5:11*.
The vocabulary of the Song also includes a significant number of items that cannot formally
be classified as hapax legomena but that apparently have unique senses or nuances in comparison
with usage elsewhere in biblical Hebrew. Among such cases may be noted use of the root qp
with the sense of leaping in 2:8* (mqapp) and the Pual participle of qr in 3:6* to refer to
the fragrance of myrrh and frankincense (mqeret). Similarly, while the noun degel
(standard, banner) is reasonably well attested (cf. digl in 2:4*), the cognate forms dgl
(outstanding, conspicuous) in 5:10* and nidglt (visions?) in 6:4*, 10* are unique. Or
again, the rare verbal root n is used in 2:13* (n) to connote the fragrant ripening of figs
on the tree; the two other attestations of the root in biblical Hebrew refer specifically to
embalming of corpses (Gen 50:2*, 26*). An interesting example of metaphorical nuance is the

1
of a master hand.
*
8
*
10
*
2
Joseph commanded the physicians in his service to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed
Israel;
Genesis 50:2 (NRSV)
*
26
And Joseph died, being one hundred ten years old; he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.
Genesis 50:26 (NRSV)
use of the root s zp (to look upon with the eye in Job 20:9* and 28:7*) in 1:6* to describe how
the woman has been affected by prolonged exposure to the sun: i.e., she is black or darkly tanned
because the sun has looked upon her (zpatn).
Among terms that appear two or more times in the Song, but rarely or not at all elsewhere in
biblical Hebrew, the following may be noted: the repeated epithet rayt, my friend (1:9*,
15*; 2:2*, 10*, 13*; 4:1*, 7*; 5:2*; 6:4*); trm tr, pendants (1:10*, 11*); kper
kprm, henna (1:14*; 4:13*); smdar, bloom, blossoms (2:13*, 15*; 7:13*[12*]); per
prm to connote young stags (2:9*, 17*; 4:5*; 7:4*[3*]; 8:14*); ra, washing [of
sheep] (4:2*; 6:6*); and the verb gl (from gl, stream, flow) in 4:1* and 6:5*.
There are also cases in the Song where translation of terms is possible, but the precise sense
remains elusivefor example, hr bter (mountains of separation?) in 2:17*.
B. Literary Topoi
If the grammatical and lexical profile of the Song suggests common authorship of the poetry, the
impression of homogeneity is considerably strengthened by the presence throughout the work of
formulae and other literary topoi. With the exception of Ecclesiastes, no other book of the Bible

*
9
The eye that saw them will see them no more, nor will their place behold them any longer.
Job 20:9 (NRSV)
*
7
That path no bird of prey knows, and the falcons eye has not seen it.
Job 28:7 (NRSV)
*
14
*
13
*
12
so amply displays verbal and thematic repetitions. Here we will observe several broad categories
of usage summarizing the primary evidence.
320

Refrains. There are five notable refrains in the Song.
321
These can be recognized as instances
of simple reprise, in which a significant expression or cluster of terms occurs two or more times.
Functionally, the refrains underscore important themes and, in most cases, serve conspicuously
as literary structure-signals.
322

a) The lengthy first-person adjuration about the awakening of love, addressed by the woman to
the Daughters of Jerusalem, appears identically in 2:7* and 3:5*, and a third time with only
minor variations in 8:4*:
hibat etekem bnt yrs laim
immah-tr wimmah-trr et-habb ad s ettep
I adjure you, O Daughters of Jerusalem,
Do not arouse, do not stir up love, until it be ready!
Each of these occurrences marks what many commentators have judged to be the conclusion of a
major poetic unit in the Song. Closely evocative of this particular refrain is a fourth adjuration,
also addressed by the woman to the Daughters, in 5:8*:
hibat etekem bnt yrlim
im-tim et-dd mah-taggd l
s elat ahb n
I adjure you, O Daughters of Jerusalem:
If you find my lover, what shall you say to him?
That I am sick with love!
b) A refrain on the motif of embracing occurs twice, in 2:6* and 8:3*:
ml taat lrs wmn tabbqn

320
The discussion in this section draws upon an earlier study: Roland E. Murphy, The Unity of the Song
of Songs, VT 29 (1979) 43643; cf. also Roland E. Murphy, Towards a Commentary on the Song of
Songs, CBQ 39 (1977) 48296. For another approach to the unity of the Song, emphasizing the rhythm
of recurrence of association, see Francis Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: An Inquiry into Some
Interrelated Episodes of the Song of Songs, JSOT 17 (1980) 55106; and Francis Landy, Paradoxes of
Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (BLS; Sheffield: Almond, 1983).
321
With the following enumeration of the Songs refrains may be compared the analytical chart of
Loretz, 60. He identifies eight refrains, though several are fragmentary or otherwise questionable (esp.
no. 1, comprised of references to the Daughters of Jerusalem, and no. 6, attested only by 5:1ef).
Specific correlations are: refrain a) below = Loretz no. 3; b) = no. 2; d) = no. 4; e) = nos. 5, 7, 8; refrain c)
is not represented in Loretzs chart. Cf. also Feuillet, 3887, who attempts to connect the Songs refrains
to thematic topoi attested in other scriptural sources.
322
Fox (20910) prefers the looser term repetends to refrains; but the latter designation seems
justified by indications that the formulae are instructive of literary design and boundaries within the
Song.
Significantly, each instance immediately precedes an occurrence of the adjuration refrain noted
above. Although the embracing refrain per se is not found before the adjuration in 3:5*, it may
be observed that 3:4* does express a comparable notion, as the woman speaks of taking hold of
the man and not letting him go until she has brought him into her mothers house and
bedchamber.
c) The interrogative expression m zt (Who is this?) is attested three times in the Song (3:6*;
6:10*; 8:5*). In 3:6* and 8:5* it serves to announce or hail a party coming up from the
desertmore specifically, Solomons splendid litter, accompanied by a contingent of warriors
(3:68*), and the woman leaning upon her lover (8:5*). In these cases the refrain seems to
mark the beginning of poetic units, and it is perhaps significant that both are preceded by
occurrences of the adjuration refrain. The third instance, in 6:10*, introduces a cry of admiration
for the woman, apparently voiced by a host of maidens, queens, and concubines (6:89*).
d) There are three occurrences of a possession refrain, in each case spoken by the woman
(2:16*; 6:3*; 7:11*[10*]). The first two are found at the end of poetic units and exhibit slight
variation in wording, apparently for emphasis:
dd l wan l
My lover is mine and I am his (2:16*);
n ldd wdd l
I am my lovers, and my lover is mine (6:3*).
The third occurrence has a more interesting variation, making reference to the mans desire
(tq, cf. Gen 3:16*):
n ldd wlay tqt
I am my lovers, and toward me is his desire (7:11*[10*]).
e) A more complex refrain, involving collocations of a number of key words and motifs, can be
identified in 2:17* (cf. 2:8b9a*!); 4:6*; and 8:14*, the concluding verse of the Song:
ad eyypa hayym wns hallm
sb dmh-lk dd lib lper h ayylm al-hr bter

*
6
7
8
night.
*
16
To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth
children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.
Genesis 3:16 (NRSV)
Until the day breathes and the shadows flee,
Turn, my lover; be like a gazelle or a young stag,
upon the mountains of Bether (2:17*);
ad s eyypa hayym wns hallm
lek l el-har hammr wel-gibat hallbn
Until the day breathes and the shadows flee,
I shall go to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of incense (4:6*);
bra dd dmh-lk lib lper h ayylm al har bmm
Flee, my lover; be like a gazelle or a young stag,
upon the mountains of spices! (8:14*).
The movement in the three variant forms of the refrain is to the mountain(s) (har / har); in
the first and third cases (2:17*; 8:14*), the metaphor of movement is the gazelle/young stag
(b per hayylm); and the time, day/shadow (ym llm) is specified in the first
two instances (2:17*; 4:6*).
Themes and Motifs. There are other literary topoi that lack the formulaic character of the
refrains but attest to important continuities and parallels in the Song. Among such topoi, three
may be identified as having thematic significance, while the rest constitute more loosely-related
motifs.
a) The Garden of Loves Delights. Central to the poem of admiration in 4:916a* is comparison
of the woman to a luxuriant garden (gan) that produces choice fruits and spices (vv 1216*a):
gan nl t kall
gan nl ma yn tm
laik pards rimmnm
im pr mgdm

r pn b tman
hp gann yizzl bmw
A garden enclosed, my sister, bride,
a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed!
Your shoots, a paradise of pomegranates
with choice fruits:

Arise, north wind, and come south wind!
Blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow.
Immediately following this extended simile is an invitation, spoken by the woman (4:16b*):
yb dd lgann wykal pr mgdw
Let my lover come to his garden and eat its choice fruits.
This elicits a quick response from the man (5:1a*):
bt lgann t kall
rt mr im-bm
kalt yar im-dib
s tt yn im-lb
I have come to my garden, my sister, bride!
I gather my myrrh with my spices.
I eat my honeycomb with my honey;
I drink my wine with my milk.
The garden theme is echoed twice more, and somewhat enigmatically, in the Song, in words
perhaps spoken respectively by the woman and the man:
el-ginnat gz yradt
lir t bibb hannaal
To the nut-garden I came down
to see the fresh growth of the valley (6:11a*);
hayys ebet baggannm
brm maqbm
lqlk hamn
You who dwell in the gardens,
friends are listening;
let me hear your voice! (8:13*)
b) The Woman as Vineyard. Allied to the garden theme is the imagery of vines and vineyards
that appears throughout the Song (1:6b*, 14*; 2:13*, 15*; 6:11*; 7:9*[8*], 13*[12*]; 8:1112*).
At least a number of these passages comprise a theme (rather than simply a cluster of motifs)
because in the initial reference the woman refers to her brothers plans for her and then clearly
refers to herself as an untended vineyard (1:6b*):
bn imm nir-b
mn nr et-hakkrmm
karm s ell l nrt
The sons of my mother were angry with me;
they assigned me as keeper of the vineyards
my own vineyard I have not kept.
The woman may be making an implicit reference to herself in 1:14*, when she speaks of the
vineyards of Engedi (karm n ged); and so also in 7:13*[12*], when she invites her lover
to go with her early to the vineyards, to discover if the vines have budded (cf. also 6:11*).
Though the sense of 2:15* remains enigmatic, our vineyards in bloom (krmn smdar),
which are being devastated by the little foxes, could be similarly interpreted. Finally, in 8:11
12* there can be no doubt that the woman is contrasting her own self (ell) with Solomons
vineyard.
c) The Theme of Seeking/Finding. Two remarkably parallel units in 3:15* and 5:28* suffice
to establish this theme, but other references can be related to it as well. The key passages
describe nocturnal experiences, or possibly dreams, in which the woman rises from her bed to
search in the city for her missing lover. In the first episode, her seeking (Piel of dq) is
mentioned four times (3:12*), followed twice with the remark that she did not find him
(wl mtw). Watchmen, making their rounds of the city, find her and she asks if they

*
1
2
have seen the man; she then abruptly finds him and leads him to the bedchamber of her
mothers house. In the second episode, the watchmen who find her during her futile search for
the lover abuse her physically and remove or tear her outer garment (5:67*). In 6:1*, the
Daughters volunteer to assist the woman in searching for the man:
n pn ddk nbaqenn immk
Where has your lover turned, that we may seek him with you?
Her teasing response to this suggests that she needs no help from them or that the man is not
really missing, since he has gone down to browse in his garden and to gather lilies (6:2*). The
womans request to know where her lover rests at midday and his instructions on how to find
him (1:78a*) may be connected with the broader theme. Finally, in 8:12* the woman
expresses the wish that the lover were her brother, so that if she found him in public she
could greet him with a kiss and lead him to her mothers house, there to be instructed by him in
love.
In addition to these three themes, there are four noteworthy motifs.
a) Love-sickness is mentioned twice, both times referring to the womans intoxication with the
man: lat ahb n, I am sick with love (2:5*; 5:8*).
b) Twice the man invites the woman to come away with him: to witness the renewal of nature in
the springtime (2:1013*);
323
and to visit the Lebanon (4:8*). She invites him to come to his
garden and eat its choice fruits (4:16b*) and, later, to accompany her into the field and the
vineyards to witness natures blossoming and receive her love (7:1213*[1112*]). Her
invitation is also implied in the refrain of 2:17* and 8:14*.
c) Lilies (annm, singular nann) figure prominently in the Songs metaphorical
epithets and similes, apparently with a range of euphemistic and symbolical meanings.
324
In 2:1*
the woman describes herself as a lily of the valleys, an idea the man takes up immediately
thereafter in praising her superlative beauty: As a lily among thorns, so is my friend among
women (2:2*). He who browses among the lilies is used as an epithet of the man in
connection with the possession refrain (2:16*; 6:3*), while in 6:2* he is said to have gone down
to his garden to gather lilies. In 7:3*[2*] the womans lower abdomen is described as
surrounded with lilies, but in 4:5* (= 7:4*[3*]) her breasts are compared to twin fawns that

*
6
7
323
See further Norman H. Snaith, The Song of Songs: The Dances of the Virgins, AJSL 50 (193334)
12942, for a discussion of the poetic language appropriate to the Autumn and Spring passages which
he identifies in the Song. His observations about the language and imagery are more important than the
hypothesis concerning the origins of the poems Cf. also Segal, Song, 48588.
324
For detailed discussion of the evidence, see Keel, Metaphorik, 6378 and related illustrations.
browse among the lilies. On the other hand, she describes his lips as lilies that drip flowing
myrrh (5:13*).
d) Although it seems hardly to constitute a significant motif in itself, houses are referred to
frequently enough to merit mention here. The womans maternal house appears twice as the
place where she wishes to bring her lover (3:4*; 8:2*).
325
The house of the lovers is mentioned in
1:17*; the woman also refers to a house of wine where the man took her for a tryst (2:4*; cf.
1:4*).
Characterizations and Principal Epithets. The case for the Songs essential unity hinges in
no small measure on the consistency with which both major and significant minor characters are
portrayed throughout the poetry. Our analysis recognizes only two chief protagonists, an
unnamed young woman and her anonymous lover, who is apparently sketched in the guise of
king as well as shepherd. A choruslike group of other women, referred to as the Daughters of
Jerusalem, also speaks on occasion; the only personage specifically named in the Song,
Solomon, appears to be peripherally related to the dialogic scenario and exchanges of the two
lovers.
A woman, still in her youth, is the Songs focal character. It is she who speaks the great
majority of the lines, initiates most of the verbal exchanges and activities depicted, and with
whom the other major and minor protagonists interrelate. Moreover, as Fox has observed,
326

while we learn very little about her lovers life and identity, even from what she tells us, some
specific information is supplied regarding her own social context: she has worked as a vineyard-
keeper, and hence her skin is burned black by the sun (1:56*); she still resides in her maternal
home (3:4*; 8:2*); and she must contend with overbearing brothers (1:6*; 8:810*). Few as they
are, these details establish a persona for her that is independent of the way she is seen by the
man.
The Songs literary portrait of this young woman may, of course, be composite, fashioned
from originally independent units of love poetry. But that is less important than indications of
coherent design in the various sketches offered of her by the poet or editor responsible for the
received text. Such design is evident in the two extended wafs praising her attributes (4:17*;
7:27*[16*]): almost identical imagery is employed here to describe her neck (4:4*;
7:5*[4*]) and breasts (4:5*; 7:4*[3*]). Similarly, an insertion in 6:57* appears to be a quite

325
Cf. also references to the womans mother (1:6*; 6:9*; 8:1*), to Solomons mother (3:11*), and,
apparently, to the mans mother (8:5*).
326
Fox, 308.
*
5
6
7
deliberate reprise of segments of the waf in 4:17*, taking note of her hair (6:5* = 4:1*),
teeth (6:6* = 4:2*), and cheeks (6:7* = 4:3*).
Somewhat more ambiguous but interesting results are obtained when attention is specifically
focused on distribution of the eleven epithets used in the Song with reference to the woman.
327

Order of the frequency of attestation is observed in the following review; secondary
designationsi.e., those that only appear as parallels in subordinate positionare noted in
connection with the primary epithets to which they are attached. Seven categories emerge.
a) The man most often refers to the woman as my friend (rayt), a term of collegiality or,
here, endearment whose feminine form is otherwise unattested in biblical Hebrew. The nine
attestations of this epithet are spread fairly evenly throughout the poetic units of 1:26:3*, but

*
7
327
Though the study is not easily accessible, an important analysis of the Songs epithets and other
rhetorical features was published by R. Kessler, Some Poetical and Structural Features of the Song of
Songs (Leeds University Oriental Society Monograph Series 8; Leeds, 1957) esp. 19; see the useful
summary in Pope, 4751.
*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
7
8
9
10
11
none appears after the occurrence in 6:4*. The epithet is used atone six times: 1:9*, 15*; 2:2*;
4:1*, 6*; 6:4*. In two additional cases, 2:10* and 13*, it is immediately followed by the parallel
my beautiful one (ypt).
328
In the final instance, 5:2*, my friend is the second in a grand
series of four epithetsinvoked by the man in his urgent plea for the woman to open the door of
her (mothers) house.
b) Bride (kall) is attested six times, always in direct address of the man to the woman: 4:8*,
9*, 10*, 11*, 12*; 5:1*. The epithet appears alone in 4:8* and 11*: it follows my sister (see
below) in the remaining four instances. These occurrences obviously form a tight cluster, in a
section of poetry that begins with an invitation of the man to the woman (4:8*) and concludes
with his acceptance of her invitation to partake of fruits of the garden (5:1a*, followed in v 1b
by an anonymous exhortation to the two of them to enjoy the banquet of loves delights).
329

12
13
14
15
16
17
328
Note that the combination of these epithets here forms part of an obvious inclusio (2:10b*, 13b*):
qm lk ra yt ypt lk-lk (Arise, my friend / my beautiful one, and come!). There are
close resemblances to this construction elsewhere. Another inclusio is apparent in 4:1*, 7*: hinnk
yp rayt hinnk yp (Ah, you are beautiful, my friend, / ah, beautiful); kullk yp ra yt
(You are all beautiful, my friend). Note also the exchange of compliments in 1:1516*, spoken by the
man and the woman respectively: hinnk yp rayt hinnk yp(Ah, you are beautiful, my
friend; ah, you are beautiful); hinnk ypeh ddap nm (Ah, you are beautiful, my lover, most
pleasing!). Echoes may be discerned in 6:4*, 10*: ypatt rayt ktir (Beautiful are you, my
friend, as Tirzah); yp kallbn (beautiful as the moon), Cf. the related epithet in category e)
below, (the) most beautiful of women (hayyp bannm), with occurrences in 1:8*; 5:9*; and 6:1*;
and also the verbal idiom, How beautiful!, that is used three times with reference to the woman:
mah-yyp ddaik (4:10*); and, forming yet another inclusio, mah-yyp pmaik (7:2[1]*) and mah-
yypt (7:7*[6*]).
329
The themes of this segment, as well as the repetition of the epithet bride, strongly suggest its use
as an epithalamium, and perhaps its origin in a wedding context. Cf. Keel, 173, who argues that this unit
builds to a high point of the Song in 5:1*.
c) While the epithet my sister (t) is never used alone, it appears in initial position in each
of its five attestations; once again, these are tightly clustered: 4:9*, 10*, 12*; 5:1*, 2*. In the first
four cases the sister epithet is followed by bride as noted above; in the final case it
introduces the consecutive series of four epithets (my sister, my friend, my dove, my perfect
one).
d) The man three times addresses the woman as my dove (ynt): 2:14*, where the epithet
appears alone; 5:2*, as the third in the series of four epithets, followed by my perfect one
(tammt); and 6:9*, followed by the only other occurrence of my perfect one.
e) The woman is also referred to three times as (the) most beautiful of women (hayyp
bannm); it is used alone in each instance. The man introduces this epithet in 1:8*, which is
the first time he speaks in the Song. Later, in 5:9* and 6:1*, the Daughters employ the
epithetapparently as an intentional echo of the mans wordswhen addressing inquiries to the
woman concerning the uniqueness and whereabouts of her lover.
f) In 7:1*[6:13*] the enigmatic epithet or title the Shulammite (habalammt) is twice
associated with the woman, first when she is so addressed by an unspecified group and then in
her own questioning response.
330

g) Each of the three additional epithets for the woman is attested only once. All of them appear
in the waf of 7:27*[16*], which is apparently introduced by the Shulammite exchange
noted immediately above: noble daughter (bat-ndb) in v 2*[1*]; loved one (ahb) in v
7*[6*]; and beautiful daughter (bat tangm), also in v 7*[6*]. Thus another tight cluster is
formed by the final four epithets.

*
9
*
13
330
For discussion of the epithets possible meaning and significance, see below, p. 181.
*
6
*
6
The more widely distributed of these epithetscomprising categories a), d), and e)serve as
semantic markers or threads, stitching together sections of dialogue through 6:10*. The clustered
designations in categories b) and c) suggest the isolation of 4:85:1*; yet the occurrence of my
sister heading the series in 5:2* creates at least a secondary bond between all of the epithets
used for the woman in the first five categories. On the other hand, these epithetical threads are
conspicuously absent in 6:118:14*.
331
Indeed, the peculiar cluster of designations in categories

*
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1
*
11
12
f) and g) directs attention to the singularity of the sketch in 7:17*[6:137:6*]. While other
literary topoi, already noted, indicate that this is supposed to involve the same woman who
speaks and is addressed in earlier parts of the Song, we see her here from a different viewpoint,
perhaps that of bystanders rather than her lover per se (cf. 7:89*[78*]).

13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
331
This provides another indication of the problem already noted of discerning dialogic structure and
coherence in the final segments of the book; see above, pp. 6667.
The portrait of the Songs chief male protagonist is drawn almost entirely from the womans
perspective. When he speaks it is always about her and usually in direct address to her;
332
at least
twice we hear his voice because she quotes him (2:1014*; 5:2a*). His words reveal the depth of
his passion for her, but little else about himself.
We glimpse his idealized physical charms through her adoring eyes in the waf of 5:1016*.
This she offers in response to a reduplicated question from the Daughters (5:9*; cf. 6:1*): How
does your lover differ from any lover? (mah-ddk middd). Here the general term dd
rendered lover but perhaps more literally having a quasi-passive sense, one who is loved
identifies him only in relationship to her (cf. also 8:5*). It forms the base of the epithet my
lover/beloved (dd), used by the woman throughout the poetry in speaking to and about the
man.
333
Only once, in concluding the waf addressed to the Daughters (5:16*), does she append
to this another designationmy friend (r)that has a counterpart among the more vivid
and varied terms of endearment he employs with reference to her.
There are, however, two other repeated expressions used by the woman that function as more
interesting appellatives for the man. In the Songs initial report of dialogue between the couple,
she addresses him as [you] whom my soul loves (ehb nap [1:7*]). This striking

332
The brief address to Solomon in 8:12* may be a partial exception, if this concluding segment is to
be assigned to the man.
*
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
333
There are twenty-six occurrences: 1:13*, 14*, 16*; 2:3*, 8*, 9*, 10*, 16*, 17*; 4:16*; 5:2*, 4*, 5*,
6[bis]*, 8*, 10*, 16*; 6:2*, 3[bis]*; 7:10*[9*], 11*[10*], 12*[11*], 14*[13*]; 8:14*.
*
16
idiom
334
later reappears four times in close succession through the first of the seeking/finding
episodes narrated by the woman (3:14*). Twice, in connection with the possession refrain,
she characterizes him as [the one/he who] browses among the lilies (hreh baannm
[2:16*; 6:3*]). Lilies here is presumably a metaphor for the woman herself (cf. 2:12*), while
the participial form rendered browses (reh) alludes not only to the mans love-making but to
his role or guise as shepherd.
Other than this allusive reference, the term shepherd is never used directly to characterize
the man, though it is strongly implied in the couples initial exchange of dialogue (1:78*): Tell
me, she asks him, where you pasture [tireh], where you rest (the flock) [tarb] at midday;
If you do not know, he replies, follow the tracks of the flock and pasture [r] your kids
near the tents of the shepherds [hrm]. The tenor of the exchange is playful. While the issue
is obviously the prospect of a noontime tryst, it is not necessary to interpret literally the pastoral
setting and roles of either party. Here, as elsewhere in the Song where the couples liaisons come
into view (e.g., 4:68*: 5:1*; 7:1113*[1012*]), the rustic, naturalistic imagery may be
essentially metaphorical.

334
See above, p. 75.
*
1
2
*
6
frankincense.
7
8
*
10
11
12
More frequent are depictions of the womans lover as king (melek) as well as statements
that otherwise seem to associate royal motifs with the man and the woman. The clearest instance
occurs in the Songs initial unit, where a female voice either tersely describes, invites, or
imagines an experience of majestic love-making (1:4*):
What context there is for this suggests youthful enchantment of the speaker and other young
women (the lmt of v 3*, who are possibly to be identified with the Daughters of Jerusalem
first expressly mentioned in v 5*) with a lordly swain. The second representation of the image is
equally isolated and even more cryptic (1:12*):
While the king was in his enclosure
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
Does the woman here represent herself as palace servant or entertainer, royal consort or
concubine? Royal imagery is twice adumbrated in celebrations of the womans beauty. In 6:8
10* the man boasts of her uniqueness, which is supposed to be obvious even to hosts of queens
(mlkt), concubines (plagm), and maidens (lmt, again!). Finally, in the waf that
follows the Shulammite exchange there is a difficult reference to her majestic hair (royal
purple is the metaphor) in whose tresses a king is caught (7:6*[5*]).
Although proponents of the cultic-mythological interpretation, no less than historicists and
allegorists before them, have extensively mined these textual veins, the yield is too small to
repay the speculative labor. It is easier to maintain that the royal imagery belongs to the realm of
popular romance and erotic fantasy, in which the lovers pay extravagant homage to each other.
335

In her ardor, the woman sees her lover in the guise of king; he, in turn, avows that she is superior
to the varied delights of a royal harem (cf. 8:1112*). Even so, this literary fiction has
thematic significance in the Song, constituting another thread that links disparate poetic units.
The appellation Daughters of Jerusalem (bnt yrlaim) is introduced ex abrupto in
1:5* and invoked six additional times in the course of the Song, always in direct address (2:7*;
3:5*; 3:10*;
336
5:8*, 16*; 8:4*). The group of women so designated might be associated with the

*
10
11
12
335
On literary fictions in the Egyptian love songs, see above, p. 47.
336
Here bnt yrlaim is best understood as a vocative and connected with 3:11*, paralleling bnt
iyyn (Daughters of Zion); see below, p. 150 (Notes ad loc.). Since the woman in all other instances is
the one who addresses them, she may be the speaker here as well but this remains very uncertain.
maidens (lmt) mentioned in 1:3* (cf. 6:8*), but it is hardly necessary to do so in an
intentional way. Nor is there sufficient reason to discern a dramatic plot in which the
Daughters play a principal role, either as the rivals of the Songs female protagonist or,
conversely, as her bridal party or cultic devotees.
337
To be sure, when she first speaks to them
there is suggestion of a story in medias res: she offers a brief account of herself, apparently in
response to their fascination with her black complexion and striking beauty (1:56*). Perhaps, as
the appellation itself suggests, they are a covey of Jerusalemite city-girls, while she is a maiden
from the countryside, the Shulammite of 7:1*[6:13*], whose skin has been darkly tanned from
working in the vineyards under the stare of the sun. Although this initial perception of difference
between the woman and the Daughters does not have to be adversarial, it is important. It
establishes her unique identity, preparing us for the mans testimony to her superlative beauty:
As a lily among thorns, so is my friend among women [literally the daughters, habbnt]
(2:2*); When women [bnt] see her, they praise her (6:9*).
From the outset, then, the Daughters function primarily as a foil for the womans own
reflections. They may be likened to an on-stage audience or chorus, perhaps present throughout
but only rarely speaking, to whom she relates her experiences of love and the lessons she has
learned.
338
Four times she adjures them. Three of these are fixed refrains (2:7*; 3:5*; 8:4*),
which follow her reports of particular encounters with her lover; the literary pattern suggests that
while the woman has been speaking to the Daughters all along, she invokes them directly to

*
8
337
Proposed identifications of the Daughters represent the history of the Songs interpretation in nuce.
Origen, citing Rom 11:28*, takes them to be the Jewish community, the daughters of this earthly
Jerusalem who, seeing the Church of the Gentiles, despise and vilify her for her ignoble birth; for she is
baseborn in their eyes, because she cannot count as hers the noble blood of Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob, for all that she forgets her own people and her fathers house and comes to Christ
(Commentarium in Canticum canticorum, Book Two, 1:5* ad loc. [Lawson, 92]). They are generally
identified as the assembly of Israel (knt dyrl) in the Targum (e.g., at 2:7* [Sperber, Vol. 4a, 130]).
Joon, 79 (citing in support Rashis interpretation), considers them to represent the gentile nations,
coming as proselytes to Zion. For proponents of the historicizing and dramatic interpretations they
become harem-women (e.g., Delitzsch, 24: ladies of the palace); the wedding-rites theory makes them
the brides cortege (Budde, 3: die weiblichen Hochzeitsgste). In Meeks cultic interpretation they are
female votaries of the fertility goddess (105).
338
Commenting on 1:5*, Robert (70) remarks that the appearance of the daughters is a dramatic trait.
Whereas the woman seemed to be alone, soliloquizing, she suddenly appears to be involved in a kind of
dialogue with the daughters, which enables her to express her feelings more fully. This recalls the
function of the chorus in ancient Greek tragedy, and is a simple literary process. Cf. also the remarks of
Fox, 302303.
underscore her conclusion about the overwhelming power of love aroused. The fourth adjuration
(5:8*) immediately follows her second account of a nocturnal search for her lover, which ends
with the watchmen abusing her. Now she invokes the Daughters to convey her message of love-
sickness to the man, should they find him. Her invitation for them to become directly involved
in the affair provokes their questions in 5:9* and 6:1*, to which she responds respectively with a
waf describing the mans unique beauty (5:1016*) and what seems to be a smug admission
that further search for him is not really necessary (6:23*). Even here, where the role of the
Daughters is most active, they neither describe themselves nor reveal their own feelings and
values; they are present solely to promote what the woman wishes to say.
Apart from the superscription (1:1*), the name Solomon is mentioned six times in the
Song. Although nothing warrants identifying Solomon as the womans lover, the references to
him appear to have thematic significance, especially in connection with the royal literary
fiction noted above. That is, Solomons proverbial wealth, splendor, and love-life comprise part
of the allusive backdrop (along with the nature imagery) against which the Songs portraits of
two young lovers are sketched. In the initial reference (1:5*), the woman likens herself to the
pavilions of Solomon (yrt lmh),
339
apparently as regards both color and exotic beauty.
It is possible that her enigmatic epithet the Shulammite (7:1*[6:13*]) involves a deliberate
wordplay on the name Solomon, and so too her puzzling statement in 8:10b*: Then I have
become in his (the lovers) eyes as one who finds peace [lm]. Solomon comes into direct
view only in 3:611* (especially vv 7*, 9*, 11*), where the procession of his splendid litter on
his wedding day is described.
340
Finally, 8:1112* seems to narrate a short parable about
Solomons vineyard in Baalhamon, with an appended remark addressed to Solomon, boasting
that the speakers own vineyard (karm ell) is both more accessible and valuable; apparently
the woman herself is meant, whether the words are to be attributed to her or to her lover.
C. Prosody
In addition to the broader patterns of verbal and thematic repetition noted above, individual
poetic units of the Song exhibit exquisitely crafted designs, often involving both formal
(stichometric) and semantic (parallelistic) repetitions. The prosodic devices encounteredsuch

339
Following the suggestion of Hugo Winckler and Julius Wellhausen, many modern commentators (e.g.,
Ricciotti, 200202; Miller, 26; Rudolph, 123; Gerleman, 99; and Pope, 320; cf. also NAB and NEB) emend
the vocalization of M, which is fully supported by the ancient versions in this instance (e.g., G
and B pelles Salomonis) to read Salmah here rather than Solomon. This reading may be
correct, providing a closer parallel to the preceding tents of Qedar, but given other references to
Solomon in the text, it seems preferable to retain M in 1:5*, while recognizing the possibility of an
intentional wordplay.
*
10
340
It may be observed that one of the few obvious links between this puzzling unit and other parts of the
Song is the reference in 3:10(>11*) to the Daughters of Jerusalem.
as alliteration, paronomasia, chiasmus, and inclusioare varied enough to constitute a virtual
textbook of Hebrew prosody. Yet here too the sense that emerges from close analysis is one of
great stylistic homogeneity, suggesting common authorship of most if not all of the major units.
Critical approaches to Hebrew prosody differ widely, with many matters remaining under
intensive debate.
341
There is little agreement, for example, on the extent to which fixed rhythms
can be considered a crucial factor and, if they are deemed fundamental, how to measure and
describe them.
342
Larger prosodic structuressuch as stanzas and strophes within poemsare
another vexed issue, though some commentators have suggested that strophic arrangement is the
most conspicuous literary feature of the Songs poetry.
343
While even the character of

341
For recent comprehensive discussions, though representing the particular approaches of the authors
to ancient northwest Semitic prosody, see the following: David Noel Freedman, Prolegomenon to G. B.
Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry (New York: Ktav, 1972) viilvi (reprinted in G. B. Gray, Pottery, Poetry,
and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980] 2350); Marjo C. A.
Korpel and Johannes C. de Moor, Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry, The Structural Analysis
of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry (JSOTSup 74; ed. Willem van der Meer and Johannes C. de Moor;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988) 161; and Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A
Guide to its Techniques (JSOTSup 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1984). Approaches to the prosody of the Song in
recent commentaries are quite varied. Relatively full discussion is offered by Robert, whose sections of
critique litteraire include metrical analysis for each poem he recognizes. On the other hand, while
Gerleman offers a fine treatment of the Songs language and style, he avoids altogether discussion of
metrical issues. Especially detailed is the treatment of L. Krinetzki (5075 and passim) who addresses the
whole range of the Songs literary and stylistic features, in the tradition of Luis Alonso Schkel (Estudios
de Potica Hebrea [Barcelona: Flors, 1963]; and Hermenutica de la palabra, Vol. 2: Interpretacin
literaria de textos bblicos [Academia Christiana 38; Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1987] = A Manual of
Hebrew Poetics [tr. with Adrian Graffy; Subsidia Biblica 11; Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1988]). For
example, Krinetzki (59) argues that intentional use of assonance can be discerned in many cases: weak
consonants may in his view express ecstatic admiration (1:1517*), or a feeling of happiness (2:16*);
repetition of the consonant b in hassbbm br (3:3*) suggests the noise of footsteps;
harnhamn et-qlk (2:14*) is supposed to imitate the sound of a shrill cry.
342
Stanislav Segert (Die Versform des Hohenliedes, Charisteria Orientalia praecipue ad Persiam
pertientia: Ioanni Rypka sacrum [ed. Felix Tauer et al.; Prague: eskoslovensk Akademie, 1956] 285
99) has made use of three metric schemes in his analysis of the Songs poetic rhythms: Wortmetrik, in
which the basic unit of measurement is each accented word of two or more syllables; accentual meter (a
modification of the approach to accent-counting developed by E. Sievers and Max Haller), involving
textual emendation and reconstruction of pristine cola; and alternating meter (as proposed especially by
Gustav Hlscher), in which the criterion of measurement is the regular alternation of stressed and
unstressed syllables. Loretz (5556 and passim) settles for indicating basic patterns of symmetry
between cola by giving consonant counts.
343
Esp. Rudolph, 99100; in the sections of commentary proper, Rudolphs remarks on prosody consist
only of noting the number of lines that comprise the supposed strophes. Cf. also Broadribb (Thoughts,
parallelism, once considered the sine qua non of Hebrew poetry, has been subjected to recent
redefinition,
344
it continues to provide the most helpful approach to prosodic analysis. In the
following paragraphs, we will do no more than illustrate how such an approach facilitates
recognition of the Songs artistic design.
Basic Units of Stichometry. Patterned lineation or segmentation is evident throughout the
Song. The great majority of these segments (cola) vary in length from five to ten syllables,
according to the vocalization of M.
Those in the lower range generally bear two stressed or tonic syllables, while those in the upper
range have three or sometimes four such accents, with the cantillation of M supplying the data.
Isolated segments (monocola) are rare in the Song.
345
Although these segments appear to be
prosaic, they can be functionally identified in relationship to prosodic units.
346
For example,

1617) who divides the Song into five major sections of poetry and counts some thirty-five strophes,
averaging six lines each: I. 1:22:3* (1:24*, 56*, 78*, 914*; 1:152:3*); II. 2:417* (2:46*, 7*, 8
10a*, 10b13*, 1417*); III. 3:15:1* (3:14*+5*, 610*; 4:13*, 47*, 811*, 1215*; 4:165:1*); IV.
5:27:14[13]* (5:23*, 46*, 78*, 1013*, 1416*; 6:13*, 47*, 89*, 1012*; 7:13*[6:137:2*], 4
6*[35*], 710*[69*], 1114*[1013*]); V. 8:114* (8:14*, 57*, 810*, 1114*).
344
So James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven/London: Yale
University, 1981)esp. 158. Kugels argument that even in so-called synonymous parallelism the
secondary segments do not simply repeat but emphasize, extend, and complete the poetic image is
cogent. His use of / and // to represent partial and full pauses in clause structures is adopted below.
However, as regards analysis of prosodic lineation and distinction between structures of prose and
poetry, a more useful approach is outlined by Stephen A. Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry
(Harvard Semitic Monographs 20; Missoula: Scholars, 1979)esp. 552.
345
The assessment of Segal (Song, 479) is puzzling: The parallelism, so characteristic of biblical poetic
literature, is not frequent in the Song. Only occasionally does the rhythmic prose of the Song rise into
parallelistic versification. He apparently counts only twenty-eight genuinely parallelistic cola in the
entire Song. This minimalist approach should be compared with the analysis of Loretz, esp. 5758.
346
Relative absence of prosaic syntax and particles is one of the major criteria urged by David Noel
Freedman in recognizing poetic literature in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Another Look at Biblical Hebrew
Poetry, Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry [ed. Elaine R. Follis; JSOTSup 40; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1987] 1128). In this regard it may be observed again that the relative er never
occurs in the Song after the superscription (see above pp. 7475 on use of e-el). The definite object
marker et appears only sixteen times in the text of M, and at least in some cases its presence does seem
to identify more prosaic statements (1:6*; 2:7*, 14*; 3:15*; 5:3*, 7*, 8*; 7:13*[12*]; 8:4*, 7[bis]*,
12*). There are two possibly prosaic uses of conjunctive waw with cohortative (subjunctive) verb forms
to express purpose: qm(-nn wasbb br, Let me arise that I may make the rounds of the
city (3:2*); nbaqenn immk, that we may seek him with you (6:1*). There are also two
attestations of waw consecutive with imperfect, both in 6:9*: rh bnt wayarh mlkt
plagm wayhallh, When women see her, they praise her; queens and concubines, they bless
her.
the line My lover responded to me in 2:10a* is an introductory rubric to the poem on Spring
that follows in vv 10b13*.
347
Again, in 1:3b* and the final two-word clause of v 4* the isolated
linestherefore the maidens love you and Rightly do they love youare concluding
formulae that themselves comprise a pair of cola (bicolon). In such cases, it is likely that we can
discern editing meant to link originally discrete poetic units into larger structures.
Paired segments or couplets (bicola) are the building-blocks of the Songs poetry, though as
will be seen below triplets (tricola) and more elaborate patterns are also quite common. The
couplets sometimes exhibit only formal (nonparallelistic) linkage. That is, the segments together
form a coherent two-part statement, characterized by syntactical enjambment. More often,
however, semantic correlations (parallelism) are evident between the segments of each
couplet, as also between those of triplets and the like. In the examples of both formal and
parallelistic lineation cited below, each Hebrew segment (colon) will be followed by either a
single (/) or double (//) stroke; these indicate, respectively, minor and major stops that
correspond approximately to comparable degrees of punctuation in the English translations.
348

Moreover, in the righthand margin a double notation is provided in parentheses to indicate the
character of the relationship between the Hebrew lines and their components. Capital letters
(A,A,B,B, etc.) represent the basic relationship between segments (i.e., A/B indicates enjambed
or non-parallelistic cola, while A/A signals semantic congruity). Lowercase letters (a,a,b,b,
etc., separated by:) in square brackets identify the primary semantic and grammatical-syntactical
elements that comprise the individual segments (with each lettered element usually bearing a
single tonic stress).
Generally there are other features, besides syntax, that demonstrate both the segmentation
and congruence of non-parallelistic couplets. Alliteration of sibilants is prominent in the
following enjambed bicolon of 1:6a*:
al-tirn en arret / (A [a:b:c])
ezpatn hame / / (B [d:e])
Do-not-stare-at-me because-I-am blackish,
for-(it)-has-burned-me the-sun.
Enjambment is common especially in the wafs (which, in any case, should be considered a
peculiar genre of poetry). Often, as in the following example from 4:2a*, the basic metaphor or
simile is stated in the initial line, with an elaborated indication of the tertium comparationis
appearing in the second:
innaik kder haqqbt / (A [a:b:c])
el min-hra / / (B[d:e])
Your-teeth (are) like-a-flock-of-sheep to-be-shorn,
that-comes-up from-the-washing.

347
It seems gratuitous to consider the familiar Hebrew idiom answer and said to represent a
parallelistic bicolon, contra Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques
(JSOTSup 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1984) 368, though his analysis of the poem Love in Spring (2:1013*) is
generally instructive.
348
See note 344 above. In the examples below, the translation used elsewhere in this commentary has
occasionally been modified to represent Hebrew word order more closely; hyphens are used to link
words that correspond to elements identified in the marginal notations.
In the instance of 8:5a* the terse, enjambed couplet appears to be an intentional echo (of the
lengthier form of the refrain in 3:6*):
m zt l min-hammidbr / (A [a:b:c])
mitrappeqet al-ddh / / (B [d:e])
Who-(is)-this (that)-comes-up from-the-desert,
leaning upon-her-lover?
Two basic lineation patterns can be distinguished in parallelistic couplets: balanced
(symmetrical); and echoing, typically with ellipsis of one grammatical-syntactical element in the
second line. Several examples of balanced couplets may be cited.
a) In 1:4*:
ngl wnim bk / (A [a:b:c])
nazkr ddk miyyayin / / (A [ab:c:d])
Let-us-exult and-rejoice in-you!
Let-us-extol your-love beyond-wine!
b) In 2:13*:
hattn nt paggh / (A [a:b:c])
whaggpnm smdar ntn ra / / (A [a:b:c])
The-fig-tree yields its-figs;
and-the-vines, in-bloom, give-forth-fragrance.
c) In 8:3* (an example of the embracing refrain):
ml taat r / (A[a:b:c])
wmn tabbqn / / (A[a:b:c])
His-left-hand (is) under my-head
and-his-right-hand embraces-me.
Two examples of couplets with echoing parallelism will suffice (in each case with the a verbal
element omitted but implied in the second segment).
a) In 8:2*:
aqk miyyayin hreqa / (A [a:b:c])
mss rimmn / / (A [b:c])
I-would-give-you-to-drink some-wine (that is) spiced,
some-juice of-my-pomegranate.
b) In 8:6*:
mn katm al-libbek / (A [a:b:c])
katm al-zrek / / (A [b:c])
Place-me as-a-seal on-your-heart,
as-a-seal on-your-arm.
In triplet lineations, two of the three segments usually display close parallelism, while one
often the firstis differentiated by syntactical and semantic elements. A number of examples
may be cited to indicate characteristic as well as more unusual types.

*
6
a) In 1:5*, interestingly, the appellative invocationwhich is the initial reference in the Song to
the Daughters of Jerusalemseems to be a supplemental or extrametrical feature (and is not
indicated in the mar ginal notation of elements):
r n wnw bnt yrlim / (A [a:b:c])
k ohl qdr / (B [d:e])
krt lmh / / (B [d:e])
Black am-I, and-beautiful, (O Daughters of Jerusalem,)
like-the-tents of-Qedar,
like-the-pavilions of-Solomon.
b) In 1:6b* the pattern is also A/B/B:
bn imm nir-b / (A [a:b:c])
mn nr et-hakkrmm / (B [c:d:e])
karm s ell l nrt / / (B [e:b:d])
The-sons of-my-mother were-angry-with-me;
they-assigned-me as-keeper of-the-vineyards
my-vineyard which-is-mine I-have-not-kept.
c) Another example of the same pattern, here in 2:12*, is noteworthy because it seems to pivot
around a wordplay in the second segment.
349
The term hazzmr is homonymic: representing
zmr, pruning (from zmr
II
), it echoes the blossom imagery of segment A; representing
zmr, song, singing (from zmr
I
), it is proleptic, introducing the imagery of sound/hearing in
the final segment (A).
hanninm nir bre / (A [a:b:c])
t hazzmr higga / (A [a:b])
wql hattr nima b arn / / (A [a:b:c])
The-blossoms appear in-the-land,
the-time for-pruning/singing has-arrived;
and-the-voice-of-the-turtledove is-heard in-our-
land.
d) In 6:8* a triplet exhibiting numerical progression is noteworthy.
s is s m hmm mlkt (A [a:b:c])
mnm plagm (A [a:c])
walmt n mispr (A [c:a])
Sixty are the-queens,
eighty (are) the-concubines
and-maidens without-number.
Prosodic Design. If couplets and triplets are basic features of the Songs poetry, there are
delightfully varied ways in which lineation segments and the grammatical-syntactical and
semantic elements that comprise them can be structured in both external and internal patterns of
repetition.
One example may be given to indicate that even when the external linkage between
segmented sets of cola is essentially formal, other features may demonstrate bonding. Here, in
1:23a*, the non-parallelistic cola are interconnected especially by word-repetition (pleasing

349
As observed by Cyrus H. Gordon, Review of Marvin Popes Song of Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 356.
*
in segments two and three), onomatopoeia (imitative sound, kiss/kisses in segment one),
alliteration (particularly the sibilants in the first, third, and fourth cola), and paronomasia
(wordplay on perfume(s) [emen] and name [m] in segments three and four):
yikn minnqt ph / (A [a:b:c])
k-bm ddk miyyyin / (B [d:e:f])
lra mnk bm / (B [g:h:d])
emen traq mek a / / (B [h:i:j])
Let-him-kiss-me with-the-kisses of-his-mouth!
Truly,-more-pleasing is-your-love than-wine.
The-fragrance of-your-perfumes (is) pleasing,
perfume flowing (is) your-name.
In the following case, two couplets are semantically interlinked, especially by the catchword
element designated c (1:1011*):
nw lyayik battrm / (A [a:b:c])
awwrk barzm / / (A [b:c])
tr zhb naeh-llk / (B [c:d:e])
im nquddt hakksep / / (B [c:d])
Lovely (are) your-cheeks in-pendants,
your-neck in-beads;
Pendants of-gold we-will-make-for-you,
along-with-ornaments of-silver.
Semantic connections between sets of couplets in 1:1314* are forged out of explicit
repetitions and more allusive metaphors, apparently anatomical:
rr hammr dd l / (A [a:b:c])
bn day yln / / (B [d:e])
ekl hakkper dd l / (A [a:b:c])
bkarm n ged / / (B [d:f])
A-sachet of-myrrh (is) my-lover-to-me;
between-my-breasts he-lies.
A-cluster of-henna (is) my-lover-to-me,
in-the-vineyards of-Engedi.

2
3
*
13
14
A fine example of parallelistic cola that build to a climax is exhibited in 1:1516a*. This
concatenation of segments is also interesting because it links lines A and A, spoken by the man,
with the A line, spoken by the woman (whose address, it may be noted, continues in a
following parallelistic triplet not cited here).
hinnk yp ra yt / (A [a:b:c])
hinnk yp naik ynm / (A [a:b:d:e])
hinnk ypeh dd ap nm / / (A [a:b:c:c])
Ah,-you (are) beautiful, my-friend;
ah,-you (are) beautiful, your-eyes (are) doves.
Ah,-you (are) beautiful, my-lover, most-pleasing!
Three couplets are interconnected in the segments of 2:14*; the design is particularly
noteworthy because it exhibits a chiastic arrangement of elements in the B/B //C/C cola. In the
initial line, the epithet seems to be extrametrical and is not indicated in the marginal notation.
ynt bagw hassela / (A [a:b])
bster hammadrg / / (A [a:b])
harnet-maraik / (B [c:d])
hamn et-qlk / / (B [c:d])
k-qlk rb / (C [d:e])
mark nweh / / (C [d:e])
(My dove,) in-the-clefts of-the-rock,
in-the-recesses of-the-cliff,
Let-me-see your-face,
let-me-hear your-voice;
For-your-voice (is) pleasant
and-your-face lovely.
A series of four terse segments is tightly interlocked by word-repetitions in 2:15*:
ezu-ln lm (A [a:b])
lm qannm (A [b:c])
mabblm krmm (B [d:e])
krmn smdar (B [e:f])
Catch-for-us foxes,
the foxes (which are) little,
(that) damage the-vineyards,
when-our-vineyards (are) in-bloom.

*
15
16
What has variously been called climactic or step/staircase parallelismin which the cola
build to closureis well illustrated in the Song. Although one example has already been given
above, two more with different designs may be noted.
350

a) A series of six segments, perhaps three couplets, is conjoined in 4:8*:
itt millbnn kall (A [a:b:c])
itt millbnn tb (A [a:b:d])
tr mr mn (B [d:e:f])
mr nr wermn (B [e:f:f])
mimmnt ryt (C [e:g])
mharr nmrm (C [e:g])
With-me from-Lebanon, O-bride,
with-me from-Lebanon shall-you-come!
Come-down from-the-top of-Amanah,
from-the-top of-Senir and-Hermon;
From-dens of-lions,
from-ramparts of-leopards.
b) The final example, a triplet from 6:9a*, is selected because it displays interesting verbal
repetitions and semantic parallels:
aat h ynt tammt / (A [a:b:c:c])
aat h limmh / (A [a:b:d])
br h lyladth (A [a:b:d])
Unique (is) she, my-dove, my-perfect-one!
Unique (is) she of-her-mother,
chosen (is) she of-(the one who)-bore-her.
In sum, the multifaceted rhetorical structures of the Song contribute in substantial measure to
its aesthetic beauty as well as to a strong sense of its literary coherence. If this is the craft of an
editorial compiler of diverse poems, sheor whoever did the work of Solomon named in the
superscriptiondeserves to be recognized as a superlative poet in her own right.
7. Meaning and Theological Significance
2

Cogent interpretation of any literary work, whether ancient or modern, involves a hermeneutical
perspective as well as a methodology. In the preceding sections of Introduction, it has been
argued that application of established comparative, philological, and literary-critical methods of
analysis renders the text of the Song intelligible: It is a crafted work of poetic imagination that
portrays the profound emotions of physical love between a man and a woman. There is nothing
novel in this understanding. Traditional Jewish and Christian expositions acknowledged that the
Songs overt language, characterizations, themes, and erotic imagery identify it as love poetry.

350
See also 4:1*, 9*, 10*, 12*; and 5:9*. Cf. now the discussion of this prosodic design in Daniel
Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical Poetry (SBLMS 39; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989)
7781.
2
Commentary on the Bible), S. 41
Historical-critical methodologies have certainly illuminated this literal sense of the Song,
enabling us to discern more sharply not only what the text says but how it is constructed. Still,
important hermeneutical questions remain. Does the text mean only what it seems to say? Is
meaning significantly affected if the astute interpreter can detect reverberations in the poetry of
earlier usage? Should meaning be considered a function of individual poetic units and their likely
social settings in the life of ancient Israel; or of the whole in its final, edited form, claiming
Solomonic authorship; or of the finished work as ultimately included in the canon of sacred
Scripture? To what extent, if any, should the foreground of the textthe way it has been read by
the Jewish and Christian communities that treasured itinfluence the perspective of the modern
interpreter? If questions such as these have no definitive answers, neither can they be ignored
altogether.
A. Contemporary Interpretations: Review and Assessment
Among works of biblical literature, the Song is without peer, like the woman of superlative
beauty whose experiences of love it describes. Such judgments, however, are always relative to
the context of comparison, and this is what differentiates the major views of the Songs meaning
advocated by contemporary interpreters.
Divine-Human Marriage. Traditional Jewish and Christian views of the Song as a portrait of
the love between God and Gods people, Israel, or between Christ and his ecclesial bride, have
not lacked defenders until the present day.
351
While the authority and intrinsic value of tradition
per se have remained important factors in such expositions,
352
other grounds recognize that the
Song must have an intentional meaning beyond its literal sense. How, it is often asked, can we
account for the Songs canonization unless we suppose that it had a spiritual significance from
the outset? The question is moot, in any case, but it is usually posed to urge that poetry
concerned with human sexual love would be unworthy of canonical status; this is a bias that must
be challenged. However, more objective literary matters are adduced as well. Do not the Songs
hyperbolic language, its striking metaphors, and the carefully preserved anonymity of its male
protagonist indicate that the literal imagery has figurative import? The implication is that the
text is designed to point the perceptive reader beyond the surface sense to a more profound

351
For a recent sympathetic restatement of the traditional Jewish perspective, see Gershon D. Cohen,
The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality (The Samuel Friedland Lectures; New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, 1966); reprinted in The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (ed.
Sid Z. Leiman; New York: Ktav, 1974) 26282.
352
See esp. the commentaries of Bea, 5, 13; and Miller, 67, who regards exegetical tradition and
ecclesiastical decision (the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia posthumously at the Fifth
Ecumenical Council = Second Council of Constantinople in 553 C.E.) as the theological grounds for
advocating the primacy of the Songs typical sense. As many scholars have pointed out, however, one
cannot infer from the episode of Theodore that the Church condemned interpretation of the Song along
the lines of human sexual love: see esp. Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des
cantiques, RB 61 (1954) 6889; and Achille M. Brunet, Thodore de Mopsueste et le Cantique des
cantiques, tudes et recherches 9 (1955) 15570.
theological meaning, which can be discovered when the Song is read in the light of other
scriptural sources.
353

The salvation-historical drama of covenant making between God and Israel at Sinai,
comprehended through the metaphor of human marriage, provided the obvious point of reference
for early and medieval Jewish exposition of the Song.
354
The same metaphor has continued to
function as principal warrant in defenses of traditional Christian views. However, proponents
have emphasized the metaphors presence in prophetic contexts, such as Hosea 13 and Isaiah
62:35*, more so than in pentateuchal sources.
355
This has the effect of identifying the Songs

353
Cf. Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Studia Post-Biblica 4; Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1973) 3739.
354
See above, p. 13, n. 55, and pp. 2833. On the general scope and significance of the marriage
metaphor in biblical traditions, see Andr Neher, Le symbolisme conjugal: expression de lhistoire dans
lAncien Testament, RHPR 34 (1954) 3049.
*
3
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;but you shall
be called My Delight Is in Her,and your land Married;for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be
married.
5
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom
rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
Isaiah 62:35 (NRSV)
355
E.g., Joon, 7376; Andr Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques et la tradition biblique, Nouvelle
Revue Theologique 74 (1952) 92102; and, recently, Jouon, Le drame damour du Cantique des
cantiques remis en son contexte prophtique, Nova et Vetera 62 (1987) 81127; 63 (1988) 81136. Two
general problems with this approach may be noted. First, the metaphor appears in prophetic sources
primarily to portray the broken covenant (i.e., Israels harlotry, as in Hos 13; 4:12*; 9:1*; Jer 3:15*;
and Ezek 16, 23) rather than Israels youthful or future devotion to God (so Jer 2:2*; cf. Isa 54:58*); in
the Song, of course, there is no hint of the womans infidelity. Second, when the marriage/divorce
metaphor appears in prophetic literature there is no ambiguity regarding its interpretation; conversely,
the Song never offers specific warrant for a transferred identification of either the man or the woman.
The basic question thus remains: On what basis does one establish that the Song was composed with
the prophetic theme of covenantal marriage specifically in view? Cf. the terse critical response to
Feuillets position given by Jean-Paul Audet, Love and Marriage in the Old Testament *tr. F. Burke+ Scr
10 (1958) 8081 n. 2; and the more extensive review in Jacques Winandy, Le Cantique des Cantiques:
Pome damour mu en crit de sagesse (Bible et vie chrtienne; Tournai: Castermann [Maredsous],
1960) 1726.
portrait of the ideal covenantal union as proleptic: it is supposed to portend a messianic
consummation in which the bride is the new or repristinated Israel, espoused to Christ.
In recent times, the most thoroughgoing, sophisticated effort to interpret the Song as an
allegory of divine-human love and covenantal marriage has been made by Andr Robert, and
elaborated further by Andr Feuillet and Raymond Tournay.
356
According to Roberts view, the
Song is a relatively late postexilic composition whose anthological style (style/procd
anthologique) demonstrates the allegorical intention of its author. This style is supposed to be a
Jewish midrashic technique, in which words and image are carefully chosen from earlier biblical
sources and artfully collocated so as to suggest a symbolic level of meaning.
357
Each textual
segment is thus comparable to a tessera in a grand mosaic, valuable in itself but contributing to
the greater richness of the broad design. Robert claims that context of usage provides a check on
arbitrary parallelism in identifying significant semantic correlations and congruent literary
themes that unlock the allegorical sense. In the case of hr bter (2:17*), for example, he
argues that the textual referent for the latter, unusual term is the covenant ceremony narrated in
Genesis 15, where Abram cut in half (waybattr, Piel preterite of btr) several sacrificial
animals and arranged the severed parts in parallel rows, each half (bitr) opposite the other (v
10*; cf. v 17*).
358
Hence, while the literal meaning of hr bter, mountains of separation,
yields little sense, the transferred contextual meaning intended by the poet is mountains of the

356
Roberts French translation of the Song, together with notes, first appeared in Le Cantique des
Cantiques (La sainte Bible 18; Paris: Cerf, 1951,
2
1953). It is worth noting that there has been a drastic
revision of this treatment in the revised one volume edition, La Bible de Jerusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1974)
94562; according to Pope (17), Roland de Vaux was responsible for this. The tudes bibliques
commentary, with contributions from Tournay and Feuillet, provides the fullest expression of Roberts
position. For other pertinent studies of these authors, see above, n. 187.
357
On anthological style see Andr Robert, Littraires (Genres), DBSup 5, 41011; Rene Bloch,
Midrash in DBSup 5, 12631281; and the remarks of Raymond Tournay in Robert, 1017.
*
17
cleft mountains.
*
10
358
Robert, 12829.
covenant (hr brt), referring to the Palestinian hill-country God promised to grant to
Abrams descendants. In the case of 7:4*[3*], the womans anatomy becomes Israelite
geography, when her breasts are supposed by Robert to represent the mountains of Ebal and
Gerizim.
359
Great ingenuity is displayed in application of this method, and that is part of the
problem; the textual data adduced are too precarious to bear the weight of interpretation placed
on them.
360
Despite the pretense of exegetical precision, exaggeration and uncontrolled fantasy
seem to be flaws endemic to allegorical exposition.
Some defenders of traditional Christian exposition have urged that the genre of the Song is
parable rather than allegory.
361
A parable is an extended or complex metaphor with a didactic
purpose; the details that comprise the metaphor are not meant to be deciphered in ad hoc fashion,
as though each has a specific transferred meaning distinguishable from others that form the
overall design. As the methodological dictum of Maldonatus puts it, persons are not compared
with persons, nor parts to parts, but the whole affair is the burden of the comparison.
362
In this
view, the Song is generally constructed to suggest the covenantal union of God with the people
of God. The various scenes and segments of poetic dialogue illustrate the depth of divine-human

*
3
*
3
359
Robert, 26162.
360
See Loretz, Eros, esp. 20411. Loretz argues against the claims of Robert and others for presence in
the Song of obscure transferred meanings of terms by pointing out how contrastingly conspicuous is the
transposition of sexual imagery to Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 29 (cf. also Sir 14:2023* and 24:1722*).
See also Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954)esp. 58.
361
Cf. already the positions of Bossuet and Lowth, summarized above, pp. 3738. This position has been
developed during the past generation especially by Denis Buzy: La composition littraire du Cantique
des cantiques, RB 49 (1940) 16994; Lallgorie matrimoniale de Jahv et dIsral et le Cantique des
cantiques, RB 52 (1944) 7790; Le Cantique des Cantiques. Exgse allgorique ou parabolique? RSR
39 (1951) 99114; an Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1950) esp. 19. Cf. also Alberto
Vaccari, La Cantica, I Libri Poetici (La Sacra Bibbia 5/2; Firenze: Salani, 1950) 112: Since the Canticle
is a parable, it should be understood and explained according to the basic laws of the parable.
362
In Mattheum, 11:16*: non personae personis, nec partes partibus: sed totum negotium toti negotio
comparatur (Joannis Maldonati, Commentarii in Quatour Evangelistas, Vol. 1 [ed. Franciscus Sausen;
Moguntia: Kircheim, Schott & Thielmann, 1840] 334).
love, but it is the literal text that supports this theological sense. While this approach avoids the
pitfalls of detailed allegorical exposition, it still fails to establish any firm literary grounds for
reading the biblical text as a parable. The genre is imputed to the Song rather than demonstrated
on the basis of overt content.
Typology has provided a third approach adopted by some expositors in defense of traditional
Christian interpretation of the Song.
363
Although there are variations in the understanding of
typological method, it has generally demonstrated correspondences between Old and New
Testament texts. A person, thing, or event in the Old Testament is correlated with something
similar in the New (as, for example, when Adam and Christ are depicted as type and antitype in
Romans 5). Typological interpretation affirms that the Song in its literal sense refers to love
between a man and a woman, but claims that a broader canonical context also establishes a more
sublime typical meaning, which portrays the love that unites God and Gods chosen people.
Thus the commentary of Athanasius Miller offers a twofold exposition: literal explanation of the
Song is followed, in a register at the bottom of the page, by elaboration of the putative typical
sense, based especially on the nuptial themes (Christ and the church) of Ephesians 5.
364
Here,
too, the problem is one of control. No one has convincingly shown that Ephesians 5 or any other
New Testament text intends to exegete the Song, either in whole or in part; hence the typological
relationship remains a hermeneutical presupposition without solid literary foundation.
In sum, recent critics have been unable to establish an objective exegetical basis for decoding
the Song along the lines of patristic and medieval Christian exposition. While this does not
negate the value of the expository tradition in its own right, it leaves us without empirical criteria
by which to assess the possible connection between original authorial intent and subsequent
creations of hermeneutical imagination.
Cultic-Mythological Interpretation. Attempts during the present century to comprehend the
Songs literary prehistory in relationship to ancient Near Eastern traditions of sacred marriage
share certain premises with recent defenses of allegorical, parabolic, and typological readings.
Here, too, peculiarities of language and theme, as well as the eventual canonization of the work,
can best be explained if the poetry originated as religious rather than secular literature. Although
specific cultic associations and rites, which constituted the formative Sitz im Leben, seem to have
receded in the transmission of the text,
365
traditional Jewish and Christian allegories are, in this

363
E.g., Delitzsch; and Vincenz Zapletal, Das Hoheslied kritisch und metrisch untersucht (Freiburg, 1907).
Cf. Joon, 2627. For an assessment of the typological approach to the Song, see G. Lloyd Carr, The Song
of Solomon: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Leicester/Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1984) 24
32.
Miller Athanasius Miller, Das Hohe Lied bersetzt und erklrt (HS 6/3; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1927).
364
Miller, esp. 714 for discussion of his typological method.
365
Meek, 95: In course of time, however, the early connections of the book were forgotten, and it
became so secularized that it appears today as a simple anthology of love poems without any religious
connotation other than its connection with Passover and its inclusion in the canon. For an attempt to
reconstruct the Songs origins in a Spring New Years Festival, associated with Israelite rites of
Passover and Unleavened Bread, see Wilhelm Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum
Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung [Heinz Lefaire], 1926)esp. 18792; cf. also Ringgren, 34.
view, supposed to give accurate witness to a significant continuity of theological meaning: They
correctly recognized the divine persona of the Songs male protagonist, but remythologized his
heavenly bride, casting her in the secondary guise of personified Israel or the church.
If the premises of allegorical and cultic-mythological approaches are similar, so too are their
basic weaknesses. Because the biblical text in its received form gives no overt indication that it
rehearses a theological drama or comprises a liturgy, hypothecated original meaning must be
reconstructed from a skein of putative allusions to sacral personages and affairs.
366
For example,
the effusive greeting that is said to befit the womans appearance in 6:10* is usually taken to be
the strongest evidence for her possible divinity: Who is this that comes forth like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon? Pure as the sun, awe-inspiring as visions?
367
It cannot be denied that the
language here has a decidedly theophanic cast and may derive ultimately from hymnic
tradition.
368
But does this isolated bit of poetic hyperbole provide sufficient reason to identify the
female protagonist herself as an astral goddess (Ishtar, Astarte, or the like)? The text only
indicates that her unique beauty merits such praise, not that her persona is divine. Similarly,
although the epithet dd (my lover/beloved) has a divine referent in Isaiah 5:1*, as the

366
The problem is admitted by Meek, 96: On separate items the evidence may be slight, but the critics
fail to note that it is cumulative, and the theory does help to solve problems that were previously
insoluble. Cf. Pope, 1718. The most elaborate attempt to reconstruct the Song as a liturgical drama of
hieros gamos remains that of Hartmut Schmkel, Heilige Hochzeit und Hoheslied (Abhandlungen fr die
Kunde des Morgenlandes 32/1; Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft [Franz Steiner],
1956) esp. 4547. Schmkels restructuring of the text is more radical even than restorations suggested
by proponents of the secular drama theory; he posits three original ritual scenes, comprised of the
following rearranged textual segments: (Scene I.) 8:13*; 6:10*, 5a*; 1:56*; 6:1*, 2*, 1112*; 3:12*;
5:7*; 3:4*; 5:26*; 3:3*; 5:8*, 9*, 1016*; 1:7*, 8*; 8:12*; (Scene II.) 4:8*; 8:5a*, 5b7*; 7:710*[6
9*]; 2:10b14*, 17*; 4:911*; 2:16*; 6:4*, 5b9*, 3*; 4:15:7*; 7:11*[10*]; (Scene III.) 3:611*; 7:1
6*[6:137:5*]; 1:914*; 2:13*; 4:125:1*; 2:89*; 7:1214*[1113*]; 2:67*; 1:24*: 3:5*; 2:45*;
8:34*; 1:1617*.
*
10
banners?
367
This text and other references in the Song have been supposed to reflect Akkadian Ishtar in her
double capacity as goddess of love and war: see Franz X. Kugler, Vom Hohen Lied und seiner
kriegerischen Braut, Scholastik 2 (1927) 3852. Cf. also Hans-Peter Mller, Die lyrische Reproduktion
des Mythischen im Hohenlied, ZKT 73 (1976) esp. 2426; Mller attempts to chart a middle course
between literalistic and cultic-mythological readings of the Song.
368
See above, p. 51.
*
context itself makes explicit, when it is used in the Song to refer to the man there is nothing to
suggest that the sense is theophoric.
369
Alleged allusions in the Song to mythological scenarios
are even more difficult to control. Can adumbration of the shepherding motif in 1:7* support the
claim that the male lover was originally Dumuzi/Tammuz?
370
Is the role of the city watchmen
in 3:3* and 5:7* illuminated by that of the gatekeepers Inanna/Ishtar encountered in the myth of
her descent into the netherworld?
371
Does 4:8* preserve a distant echo of Astartes annual

1
Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very
fertile hill.
Isaiah 5:1 (NRSV)
369
Contra Meek, 96, who also cites the theophoric personal name Ddwh (Yahu is beloved?) in 2
Chron 20:37*. A recently discovered Phoenician epigraph from the temple of Astarte at Kition in Cyprus
may attest beloved (dd) as an epithet for Adonis, in association with communal rites of lamentation;
for the text and pertinent discussion, see Brian Peckham, Phoenicia and the Religion of Israel, Ancient
Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. et al.; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1987)esp. 8487.
*
7
370
Cf. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient
Sumer (Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1969), 90, 98103.
*
3
*
7
371
So Meek, 118. For the Sumerian and Akkadian texts in translation, see Samuel Noah Kramer, ANET
3
,
5257 (Inannas Descent to the Nether World); and Ephraim A. Speiser, ANET
3
, 106109 (Descent of
Ishtar to the Nether World). Cf. also Kramer, Studies, 49192.
*
descent from the Lebanon range to the Adonis river?
372
Such parallels are simply too tenuous;
even if some of them could be secured by new data, they are too isolated to provide a convincing
or useful context for interpreting the Song.
One cannot refute the cultic theory by claiming that those who designed the canon of Hebrew
Scriptures would never have included in it a work of heterodox origins. Conceivably, the actual
derivation of the poetry may have been forgotten long before the period of the Songs
canonization, though such argument considerably weakens the case for continuity with later
Jewish and Christian traditions of symbolic interpretation. A greater difficulty is posed by the
paucity of our knowledge about Canaanite-Phoenician and early Israelite cultic practices,
orthodox or otherwise. Polemics in biblical sources against pagan and paganizing cults do not,
understandably enough, provide very detailed accounts of the objectionable rites themselves and
how they were performed. The infamous orgiastic fertility religion of ancient Canaanat best
implied by such texts as Numbers 25:18*, Deuteronomy 23:1718*, Amos 2:7*, Jeremiah 3:6

8
372
Meek, 123; cf. Ringgren, 21.
*
1
While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of
Moab.
2
These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their
gods.
3
Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lords anger was kindled against Israel.
4
The Lord said to Moses, Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the Lord,
in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.
5
And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked
themselves to the Baal of Peor.
6
Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of
Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the
entrance of the tent of meeting.
7
When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation.
Taking a spear in his hand,
8
he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the
woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel.
10*, and Ezekiel 16:1534*is impossible to reconstruct with any specificity.
373
Was the
Canaanite goddess Asherah sometimes worshipped as Yahwehs consort? Were rites of hieros

*
16
They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever
they please; you shall not oppress them.
17
None of the daughters of Israel shall be a temple prostitute; none of the sons of Israel shall be a
temple prostitute.
Deuteronomy 23:1617 (NRSV)
*
7
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the
way; father and son go in to the same girl, so that my holy name is profaned;
Amos 2:7 (NRSV)
*
6
The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel,
how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there?
7
And I thought, After she has done all this she will return to me; but she did not return, and her false
sister Judah saw it.
8
She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of
divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore.
9
Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and
tree.
10
Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense,
says the Lord.
Jeremiah 3:610 (NRSV)
*
15
But you trusted in your beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished your
whorings on any passer-by.
16
You took some of your garments, and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the
whore; nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be.

17
You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for
yourself male images, and with them played the whore;
18
and you took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set my oil and my incense before them.
19
Also my bread that I gave youI fed you with choice flour and oil and honeyyou set it before them
as a pleasing odor; and so it was, says the Lord God.
20
You took your sons and your daughters, whom you had borne to me, and these you sacrificed to them
to be devoured. As if your whorings were not enough!
21
You slaughtered my children and delivered them up as an offering to them.
22
And in all your abominations and your whorings you did not remember the days of your youth, when
you were naked and bare, flailing about in your blood.
23
After all your wickedness (woe, woe to you! says the Lord God),
24
you built yourself a platform and made yourself a lofty place in every square;
25
at the head of every street you built your lofty place and prostituted your beauty, offering yourself to
every passer-by, and multiplying your whoring.
26
You played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors, multiplying your whoring, to provoke
me to anger.
27
Therefore I stretched out my hand against you, reduced your rations, and gave you up to the will of
your enemies, the daughters of the Philistines, who were ashamed of your lewd behavior.
28
You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; you played the whore with
them, and still you were not satisfied.
29
You multiplied your whoring with Chaldea, the land of merchants; and even with this you were not
satisfied.
30
How sick is your heart, says the Lord God, that you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore;
Ezekiel 16:1534 (NRSV)
373
For influential and representative attempts at such reconstruction, see Herbert G. May, The Fertility
Cult in Hosea, AJSL 48 (193132) 7398; and Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (tr. Gary Stansell, ed. Paul D.
Hanson; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1316. See the critical remarks and studies cited by
Robert A. Oden, Jr., The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) 13153, 18792.
gamos, thought to effect the annual renewal of nature, introduced into the Yahwistic cultus by
such censured rulers as Solomon (1 Kgs 11:5*), Ahab (1 Kgs 16:3034*), and Manasseh (2 Kgs
21:37*; cf. 23:48*)? Available evidence does not allow us either to affirm or to deny these

*
5
Ammonites.
1 Kings 11:5 (NRSV)
*
30
Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.
31
And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took as his
wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him.
32
He erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria.
33
Ahab also made a sacred pole. Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than
had all the kings of Israel who were before him.
34
In his days Hiel of Bethel built Jericho; he laid its foundation at the cost of Abiram his firstborn, and set
up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by
Joshua son of Nun.
*
3
For he rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal, made
a sacred pole, as King Ahab of Israel had done, worshiped all the host of heaven, and served them.
4
He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, In Jerusalem I will put my name.
5
He built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord.
6
He made his son pass through fire; he practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and
with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger.
7
The carved image of Asherah that he had made he set in the house of which the Lord said to David and
to his son Solomon, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I
will put my name forever;
*
possibilities.
374
What can be said, however, is that nothing in the Song shows the clear imprint of
cultic performance. Certainly the poetry gives no hint of sexual licentiousness, secular or sacred,
nor is there a discernible trace of funerary rites usually associated with the cults of Tammuz and
Adonis.
375
The vitality of nature comes into view in the Song but only as the accompaniment of
sexual love, not as its outcome.
As our earlier survey of Egyptian and Sumerian sources indicated, there is no reason to doubt
that the biblical Song is indebted, at least indirectly, to older traditions of Near Eastern love
poetry. Nor need one quarrel with the likelihood that some of these antecedent traditions had
specifically sacral significance or that they otherwise witness to the reciprocity of imagery
depicting divine and human love. However, in the final analysis, the cultic-mythological
approachlike its allegorical counterpartproves to be inadequate because it too quickly shifts

4
The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the
threshold, to bring out of the temple of the Lord all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all
the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes
to Bethel.
5
He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high
places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun,
the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens.
6
He brought out the image of Asherah from the house of the Lord, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi
Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the
common people.
7
He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the Lord, where
the women did weaving for Asherah.
8
He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had
made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba; he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the
entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on the left at the gate of the city.
374
See the judicious assessment of the evidence, including the Kuntillet Ajrud epigraphs that refer to
Yahweh and his Asherah, offered by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite
Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross
(ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 13755.
375
On the Phoenician cult of Adonis, see Noel Robertson, The Ritual Background of the Dying God in
Cyprus and Syro-Palestine, HTR 75 (1982) 31359. The evidence accumulated by Pope (21029) to
suggest a connection between the Song and a Canaanizing mortuary cultusfeaturing the marza, a
love feast celebrated with wine, women, and song (228)is fascinating, but the specific thematic links
are unconvincing as regards Sitz im Leben and literary character; the Song simply does not portray
sexual revelry as a means of overcoming the power of death. Cf. the remarks of Fox, 243.
the focus of expository attention to a reconstructed level of meaning. It is a contribution of
sound historical-critical method to insist that the literary character and thematic content of the
received text of the Song not be overwhelmed by detailed exploration of either ancient Near
Eastern background or the foreground of traditional Jewish and Christian interpretation.
376

Eros and Wisdom. What distinguishes the Song most sharply from other works of biblical
literature is not the fact that it takes human sexuality seriously but rather the exuberant,
thoroughly erotic, and nonjudgmental manner in which it depicts the love between a man and a
woman. Here, the emotions of the two young loverstheir yearnings and pleasure in each
otheroccupy the textual foreground, almost blotting out conventions to which romance and
sexual relations are generally subordinated elsewhere in scriptural sources. But it is important to
notice that a social context is not entirely absent. The Daughters of Jerusalem may have
significance in this regard (2:7*; 3:5*; 8:4*) and possibly also the enigmatic watchmen (3:3*;
5:7*). Twice the young woman, refers to constraints her elder brothers try to impose on her
activities (1:6*; 8:810*). And she acknowledges that it would be indiscreet to greet her lover in

376
Although addressed to proponents of the allegorical approach, the following remarks of Audet
(Love, 8081 n. 2) are equally applicable to cultic-mythological interpretations of the Song: In any
problem the most detailed solution is not necessarily the most accurate. I would even go so far as to say
that in the present case, any temptation to enter too soon into detailed examination may very easily-
conceal a retreat from the much more serious problem raised by the text as a whole. For in such a
situation detailed analysis is only possible on a basis of assumptions, and in the nature of things, with
every move it sinks deeper into erroneous details. So it is with the assumptions themselves that one
must quarrel.
*
7
until it is ready!
*
5
until it is ready!
*
4
*
public with a kiss (8:1*). These touches alone suffice to indicate why the Song should not be
described as a treatise on free love.
377
The cultural setting is one that encouraged strict
standards of sexual morality and marital fidelity (e.g., Deut 22:1329*). What this poetry

6
*
8
spoken for?
9
10
*
1
377
Contra Rudolph, 105106.
*
13
Suppose a man marries a woman, but after going in to her, he dislikes her
14
and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, I married this woman; but when I lay
with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.
15
The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young womans
virginity to the elders of the city at the gate.
16
The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: I gave my daughter in marriage to this man
but he dislikes her;
17
now he has made up charges against her, saying, I did not find evidence of your daughters virginity.
But here is the evidence of my daughters virginity. Then they shall spread out the cloth before the
elders of the town.
18
The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him;
celebrates is not eroticism for its own sake, and certainly not ribaldry or promiscuous sex, but
rather the desires of an individual woman and man to enjoy the bond of mutual possession
(2:16*; 6:3*; 7:10*[9*]).
378
It is all the more striking, therefore, that even when nuptial motifs

19
they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young womans father)
because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to
divorce her as long as he lives.
20
If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young womans virginity was not found,
21
then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her fathers house and the men of her
town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in
her fathers house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
22
If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the
woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23
If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town
and lies with her,
24
you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman
because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbors wife. So
you shall purge the evil from your midst.
25
But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country, and the man seizes her and lies with
her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.
26
You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offense
punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor.
27
Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was
no one to rescue her.
28
If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in
the act,
*
16
*
come into view (3:11*; 4:85:1*) no reference is made to the important familial business of
Israelite marriagecontractual arrangements, dowries, child-bearing, inheritance, and the like.
379

3
*
9
*
9
378
The individuality of the Songs lovers, within a particular socio-cultural context, is correctly stressed
by Fox (308), this in response to Leo Krinetzkis psychological treatment of them along Jungian lines as
male (Animus) and female (Anima) sexual archetypes (Die erotische Psychologie des Hohen Liedes, TQ
150 [1970] 40416).
*
11
*
8
9
10
11
12
13
The poetry allows us to suppose that these are matters for others to attend to and on other
occasions. For the moment we, as audience, are invited by the poet to appreciate the qualities of
tenderness, joy, sensual intimacy, reciprocal longing and mutual esteem, all of which are socially
desirable and beautifully mysterious dimensions of human sexual love.
As suggested earlier, it is not unlikely that at least some of the poems that comprise the Song
in its received form were originally discrete compositions.
380
One thinks in this regard of the
major wafs in 4:15* and 5:1016* and of the beautiful Spring Song in 2:1014*. We can

14
spices
15
16
1
379
For the legal-institutional dimensions of ancient Israelite betrothal and marriage, see the following
useful surveys: Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 2438; and Zeev W. Falk, Hebrew Lam in Biblical Times: An
Introduction (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1964) 12353.
380
See above, pp. 6267.
*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
*
only speculate on the basis of genre, imagery, and theme as to the possible settings and functions
of such units, were they indeed once independent poems. Courtship, in preference to wedding
rites per se, generally commends itself as a context for the composition and use of love poetry.
But specific occasion for and social interest in amatory lyrics obviously need not be limited to
private interactions between young lovers themselvesas works of the Greek bucolic poets,
Elizabethan love sonnets, and popular ballads of our own day attest, no less than the extant
examples of Egyptian and Sumerian love poetry. Artful entertainment, whether of a folkish or
courtly sort or both, cannot be ruled out as a factor in the writing and transmission of poetry that
was eventually incorporated into the literary text of the Song.
However, if one does seek a more formal preliterary setting for the Songs poems, Jean-Paul
Audet may be correct in pointing to popular rites of betrothal (somewhat comparable, perhaps, to

10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
*
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
modern engagement).
381
It is his suggestion that Hosea 2:17* alludes to lyrical declarations of
love that belong to a prenuptial stage of espousal: and there she (Israel) shall respond
[wnt] as in the days of her youth. Similarly, the voice of the bride and the voice of the
bridegroom (Jer 7:3234*; 16:59*; 25:1011*) in his view refers to semipublic avowals of

381
Audet, Le sens, 211216; and Audet, Love, 79.
*
15
From there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall
respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
Hosea 2:15 (NRSV)
*
32
Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the Lord, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the
valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no
more room.
33
The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and no
one will frighten them away.
34
And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in
the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste.
*
5
For thus says the Lord: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament, or bemoan them; for I
have taken away my peace from this people, says the Lord, my steadfast love and mercy.
6
Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them;
there shall be no gashing, no shaving of the head for them.
7
No one shall break bread for the mourner, to offer comfort for the dead; nor shall anyone give them
the cup of consolation to drink for their fathers or their mothers.
8
You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink.
9
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to banish from this place, in your days and
before your eyes, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the
voice of the bride.
*
love between a betrothed man and woman (cf. Gen 29:1830*). In such a putative setting the
poetry testifies to an tat de conscience, as Audet calls itthe emphatically positive attitude
that ancient Israel had toward human sexual love, love whose physical and emotional profundity
was assumed to be fully consummated in the partnership of faithful marriage and would in due

10
And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the
bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.
11
This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon
seventy years.
*
18
Jacob loved Rachel; so he said, I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.
19
Laban said, It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to any other man; stay with
me.
20
So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he
had for her.
21
Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife that I may go in to her, for my time is completed.
22
So Laban gathered together all the people of the place, and made a feast.
23
But in the evening he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob; and he went in to her.
24
(Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah to be her maid.)
25
When morning came, it was Leah! And Jacob said to Laban, What is this you have done to me? Did I
not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?
26
Laban said, This is not done in our countrygiving the younger before the firstborn.
27
Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another
seven years.
28
Jacob did so, and completed her week; then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife.
29
(Laban gave his maid Bilhah to his daughter Rachel to be her maid.)
30
So Jacob went in to Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban for another
seven years.
course perpetuate family and renew society. Moreover, at least implicitly this consciousness paid
homage to Gods design of creation: It acknowledged that human beings, as male and female,
were expected to participate joyfully in the ordained sacral order of life.
382
Hence the intensely
heightened awareness of natures delights, so abundant in the Songs metaphorical portraits of
the two lovers and their love-making, should not be described as indicative of merely
naturalistic, secular, or profane interests. Ancient Israel perceived the wonders of human
sexuality, fulfilled in marital love, to be a divine blessing.
Granted that the social provenance of Israelite love poetry may be envisioned along these
lines, how are we to understand the literary compilation and promulgation of the Song itself?
Audet ascribes this secondary level of work to postexilic sages, whose literary efforts otherwise
bear the closest formal, semantic, and thematic resemblances to the Song.
383
Their attribution of
the finished composition to Solomon (1:1*) Audet takes to be less a claim regarding historical
authorship than an appreciative expression of the texts superlatively sapiential significance.
384

Although more traditional wisdom lore exhibits a predominantly moralizing stance toward
sexual matters, nowhere evident in the Song,
385
it is not even necessary in this view to suppose

382
Cf. Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des cantiques, RB 61 (1954) esp. 67,
where he observes that a major problem in the history of the Songs interpretation has been an inability
of many commentators to distinguish between profane (theologically humanistic) and profaned
(licentious or corrupted) love. Along the lines suggested by Audet and Dubarle, a provocative discussion
of the Songs view of human love as at once sexually erotic and implicitly sacral is offered by the French
Protestant scholar Daniel Lys, the title of whose commentary indicates the theological perspective
adopted: Le plus beau chant de la cration: Commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques (LD 51; Paris: Cerf,
1967)esp. 5055; an extensive English summary of Lys view is provided by Pope, 201205. See, more
recently, Daniel Lys, Le Cantique des cantiques: Pour une sexualit non-ambigu, Lumire et Vie (1979)
3953. Cf. also Oswald Loretz, Die theologische Bedeutung des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 10 (1966) 2943.
383
Audet, Le sens, 20211, 21621; and Audet, Love, 7983. Audets position is developed in the
commentary of Jacques Winandy (with the sub-title suggesting his perspective): Le Cantique des
Cantiques: Pome damour mu en crit de sagesse (Bible et vie chrtienne; Tournai: Castermann
[Maredsous], 1960). Cf. Wrthwein, 34.
*
1
384
Audet, Love, 8183. This view is developed by Brevard S. Childs into the canonical context, which
he understands to be the theologically appropriate one for interpreting the Song: Introduction to the Old
Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 57379. On the other hand, Gordis (1316) seems
to understand the attribution of the work to Solomon and the connection with Wisdom to be limited
to technical aspects of prosody and music.
385
See above, pp. 6970.
that the later sages misunderstood or drastically reinterpreted the original meaning of the erotic
poetry. It remained for them what it had always beena powerful affirmation of human sexual
love, compatible with their intellectual curiosity about natural phenomena (cf. Prov 30:1819*)
as well as their pragmatic recognition of what contributed to ideal connubial bliss and marital
fidelity (Prov 5:1819*). Still, the sages seem to have added their own generalizing, self-
consciously didactic signature in 8:6b7*:
386
love (ahb) is not deified here but it is declared
to be a force as strong as Death (azz kammwet), an unquenchable flame in human
experience, and a value beyond material price. Interestingly, later sapiential theologizing
developed these and similar themes in praising the incomparable joys and benefits of human love
for personified Wisdom.
387

*
18
Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand:
19
the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and
the way of a man with a girl.
*
18
19
by her love.
*
6
7
386
Audet, Le sens, 21617. On the connections of these lines with sapiential thought, see also: Nicolas
J. Tromp, Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8, 6c7b: text, character, message and import, Le Sagesse de
lAncien Testament (ed. Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979) 8895; and M. Sadgrove,
The Song of Songs as Wisdom Literature, Studia Biblica 1978, I: Papers on the Old Testament and
Related Themes (ed. E. A. Livingstone; JSOTSup 11; Sheffield: JSOT, 1979) 24548. See below, p. 197.
387
The ardent search for and possession of personified Wisdom is depicted with erotic overtones, e.g.,
in Wis 6:1220*; 7:814*; 8:221*; Sir 51:1322*; and Bar 3:154:4*. Metaphorical imagery,
B. The Quality of Love, Human and Divine
It is a striking fact that the Song of Songs has largely been neglected in studies of biblical
theology. This may be so because major contributors to the contemporary discussion have held
views of the Songs original meaning that leave little room for theological development, either in
relationship to salvation-historical traditions usually supposed to be central to ancient Israels
religious thought
388
or to modern social and spiritual concerns. Perhaps recognition that the Song
is comprised of erotic poetry has meant for some an absence of religious or theological
significance.
389
But such a perspective is surely too narrow, even within the boundaries imposed
by a rigorously historical-critical interpretation.
While the Song is not designed to elaborate theological doctrine or to teach ethics, its
unapologetic depiction of rapturous, reciprocal love between a man and a woman does model an
important dimension of human existence, an aspect of life that ancient Israel understood to be
divinely instituted and sanctioned. We need look no further than Genesis 1 to find express
warrant for this view: the whole of Gods creation is good indeed very good, specifically

comparable to that of the Song, is used to describe Wisdom in Sir 1:1620* and 24:1322*. On the
rewards of love for personified Wisdom, see already Prov 4:79* and esp. 8:136*; note also Prov
7:4*, where embrace of knowledge is commended using epithetsmy sister (t) and intimate
one (md)reminiscent of the appellatives for the Songs lovers. Cf. the illuminating discussion of
love-language in wisdom traditions offered by Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (tr. James D. Martin;
London: SCM, 1972) 16676.
388
In this regard, of course, the Song has shared the fortunes of the more traditional books of Israelite
wisdom with which it is most closely associated in the canon. For the contemporary reassessment of
wisdoms significance, applicable at least in part to the Song, see Gerhard von Rads already classic
study, cited in the preceding note, and Roland E. Murphy, The Theological Contributions of Israels
Wisdom Literature, Listening 19 (1984) 3040; and Gerhard von Rads, Religious Dimensions of
Israelite Wisdom, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller,
Jr. et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress) 44958.
389
See Gordis, 16; and Gerleman, 8385, whose commentary deliberately omits the Ziel section, which
is otherwise a regular feature of volumes in the BKAT series. Cf. Fuerst, 199200.
including the sexual differentiation of humankind (vv 2631*). In this passage, to be sure,
procreation immediately comes to the fore as Gods purposive blessing in relationship to human
sexuality. But it fulfills rather than diminishes the extraordinary affirmation that the divine image
itself is incarnated in male and female counterparts, which only together are granted sovereignty
in Gods world. Even more poignant, perhaps, are the familiar lines of Genesis 2:1825*, a text

*
26
Then God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild
animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.
27
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them;male and female he
created them.
28
God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that
moves upon the earth.
29
God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and
every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.
30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the
earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so.
31
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there
was morning, the sixth day.
*
18
Then the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his
partner.
19
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and
brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living
creature, that was its name.
20
The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for
the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
21
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs
and closed up its place with flesh.
22
And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the
man.
Karl Barth has called the Old Testament Magna Carta of humanity because, in his view, it
epitomizes the creaturely co-existence that God intends for all humankind by focusing on the
most basic and intimate of human unions, the physical bond formed between a man and a
woman.
390
If, as some critics have argued,
391
the Songs humanistic viewpoint represents an
Israelite poets self-conscious attempt to demythologize ancient Near Eastern concepts of
sacred sexualitymanifest in fertility rites of sympathetic magicthe broader vision sketched in
Genesis 12 calls into question the notion that male-female sexual relationships were thereby
completely desacralized, secularized, or set loose from constraints of moral decision making.
Neither in the Song nor elsewhere in Scripture is human sexual love celebrated as its own
legitimation.
392
It is to be diligently sought after and treasured when found, because it is a vital
part of Gods gracious design for human life; it is a good gift to be enjoyed and yet, like
others, capable of being twisted by human perversity.
393

23
Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called
Woman,for out of Man this one was taken.
24
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25
And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
390
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Vol. 3: The Doctrine of Creation (ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas
F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 195861) esp. Part 1, 288329; Part 2, 291324; and Part 4, 116
240. In these contexts, Barth considers the Song to be a second Magna Carta that develops the view
briefly adumbrated in Gen 2 although here in a form which is almost terrifyingly strong and
unequivocal (3/1, 312). But while he specifically rejects a symbolical interpretation of the Song and
maintains that its literal primitive sense as human love poetry is profound, he supposes that the
attribution to Solomon is intended to give the work an essentially eschatological significance, i.e., to
identify it as a portrait of the messianic fulfillment of human sexual love (3/1, 312; 3/2, 29495).
391
Gerleman, 84; cf. Rudolph, 105109.
392
Contra Helmut Gollwitzer, Song of Love. A Biblical Understanding of Sex (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979)
30. While Gollwitzers reading of the Song from the point of view of modern culture is in many respects
provocative, it also illustrates the danger of too quickly bypassing the ancient social and canonical
contextualization of the poetry.
393
Cf. Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985)
18895. The comments that follow were presented in preliminary form in two essays: Roland E.
Murphy, Towards a Commentary on the Song of Songs, CBQ 39 (1977) 49496; and Roland E. Murphy,
A Biblical Model of Human Intimacy: The Song of Songs, The Family in Crisis or in Transition: A
Sociological and Theological Perspective (ed. Andrew Greeley; Concilium 121 [141 in the international
edition]; New York: Seabury, 1979) 6166.
The Hebrew Bible thus provides a coherent framework within which one can interpret the
Song as expressing a theology of human sexuality. Moreover, although Israelite culture and the
broader scope of scriptural witnesses understand marriage to be the institutional context in which
sexual love is rightly fulfilled, what the Song itself encourages us to appreciate are the emotional
experiences of love. Several key elements merit summary attention.
a) Prominent throughout the Song are themes of presence and absence in the poetic portraits of
the woman and her lover. The joy of physical presence is obvious, of course, when the man and
woman directly address each other with words of praise and, especially, when they embrace,
sharing the intense pleasures of love (2:6*; 8:3*). But in the Song as in life the loved one is not
always physically present, nor is absence necessarily the antithesis of passions fulfillment. If the
beloved others absence is intolerable, it is also creative of more intense emotions: the ardent
yearning to reunite (2:67*, 17*; 4:16*; 8:14*), a compulsive seeking that is not satisfied until
the other is found again (3:15*; 5:28*; 6:1*); and the sickness of love (2:5*; 5:8*) that,

*
6
*
3
*
6
7
until it is ready!
*
16
*
14
*

1
2
3
4
5
until it is ready!
*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
*
1
*
paradoxically, the lovers physical presence will only deepen, never cure. Sometimes the line
between presence and absence is thin, even illusory perhaps. When the woman arises to greet her
lover in 5:56*, he has gone but is still somehow there with her (flowing myrrh). The
question asked by the Daughters in 6:1* indicates that the womans lover remains to be found,
but her response (vv 23*) suggests that he is not really lost; he has gone to enjoy his garden.
Absence, in a sense, defines presence, makes it more palpable and pleasing, more excruciating
and joyous; it creates space for reflection within which the full impact of loves desire can be
profoundly experienced.
b) Another striking feature of human sexual love as depicted in the Song is the mutuality of the
feelings that draw together the man and the woman. As many episodes show, their admiration of
and yearning for each other is both reciprocal and comparably intense: each considers the other
to be unrivalled, superlative (2:13*); in the wafs they exuberantly praise each others physical

5
*
8
*
5
6
*
2
to gather lilies.
3
*
1
2
charms (4:17*; 5:1016*; 7:27*[16*]); and they exchange without embarrassment equally
passionate invitations to love-making (1:24*, 78*; 2:1314*; 4:8*, 16*; 7:1112*[1011*];

3
*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6

*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
*
2
3
4
*
7
8
*
13
8:14*). There is no sense here of masculine dominance and mere submission or subordination of
the female; it is indeed the womans voice that resounds most loudly in the poetry, eager to
initiate as well as to respond to affirmations of love. Whereas in Genesis 2:23* we hear only the
mans declaration of delightThis one now (she) is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh
in the Song the woman announces the genuinely reciprocal wholeness of identity discovered in
mutual enjoyment of physical love: My lover is mine and I am his (2:16*); and conversely, I
am my lovers and he is mine (6:3*).
394
Significantly, too, while Genesis 3:16* refers only to

14
*
10
11
*
10
11
*
23
Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called
Woman,for out of Man this one was taken.
Genesis 2:23 (NRSV)
394
Cf. Karl Barth (n. 390 above), who stresses the import of the Song in completing the thought in Gen 2:
It is to be noted that in this second text we hear a voice which is lacking in the first. This is the voice of
the woman, to whom the man looks and moves with no less pain and joy than she to him, and who finds
him with no less freedom than she is found. Implicitly, of course, this voice is heard in Genesis as well.
But it now finds expression in words. And what words! (3/2, 294). For interpretation of the Song in
relationship to Gen 23, see also Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT 2; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1978) 14465.
*
16
the sexual attraction that binds woman to man (to your husband will be your desire
[tqtk]) in the Song she can relish his ardor as completion of her own sense of intimate
belonging to him: I am my lovers, and towards me is his desire [tqt] (7:11*[10*]). This
biblical witness should not be taken lightly in a contemporary theology of human sexuality:
desire relentlessly pursues its goal, strives to acquire, seeks its own fulfillment; but it can only
nourish a love that is freely given and returned, a partnership that acknowledges the joy of being
possessed by the beloved as well as the need to possess. Perhaps that is the message of the
womans repeated admonition: Do not arouse, do not stir up love, until it be ready! (2:7*;
8:4*).
c) Eroticism gets full play in the Song. From the outset there is nothing inhibited or tentative
about the womans desire for sexual fulfillment in the arms of her lover: Let him kiss me with
the kisses of his mouth! Draw me after you! Let us run! Let us exult and rejoice in you!
Let us extol your love beyond wine! (1:2*, 4*). Nor are the mans physical intentions disguised:
I will climb the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches. Let your breasts be like the clusters of

Genesis 3:16 (NRSV)
*
10
*
10
*
2
*
4
the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples (7:9*[8*]). When the lovers offer praise of
each other, their eyes neither pass over intimate parts of anatomy nor dwell on them (5:14*; 7:2
3*[12*]). Although the poetry is explicitly erotic in its appreciation of sexual love, it never
becomes prurient or pornographic.
395
What the poet depicts for us so vividly are the emotions of

*
8
*
8
*
14
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
395
At times reference is made in the commentary to shades of meaning that attach to certain words or
actions. This may be termed double entendre in the best sense of the term. The language of love is
precisely that by its very nature. But it is important to preserve the double entendre, and not destroy it
love, not clinical acts of love-making. Every sense is involved, indeed highlighted, in this
rapturous portrait of loves delights. The man is like a fragrant sachet of myrrh, lying between
the womans breasts (1:13*), whose fruit is sweet to her taste (2:3*). She relishes his ardent
embrace (2:6*; 8:3*); even when he has departed, she feels his presence still, like flowing myrrh
on her fingers (5:5*). For his part, the man yearns to see her lovely face and to hear her lyrical
voice (2:14*), to enjoy the rich tastes of her mouth and the exotic fragrances of her garments and
body (4:1114*), and to cling to her shapely form (7:9*[8*]). The intensely sensual fascination

by a clinical translation or paraphrase; see the cautions of Jack M. Sasson, On M. H. Popes Song of
Songs *AB 7c+, Maarav 1 (1979) esp. 182. Cf. also Fox, 31015; and Benjamin J. Segal, Double
Meanings in the Song of Songs, DD 16 (198788) 24955.
*
13
*
3
*
5
*
14
*
11
12
13
of the lovers with each other finds poetic expression through the use of natural imagery: colors,
perfumes and spices, flowers and fruits, fields, budding vineyards, and luxuriant gardens. Yet the
experience of love not only draws upon the textures of nature for its metaphors, it opens the eyes
of the lovers themselves to the beauty of the world around themto its varied terrain and places
of human abode (1:5*, 1617*; 2:8*; 3:6*; 4:8*; 6:4*, 11*; 8:5*), to its seasons and the natural

14
spices
*
5
Solomon.
*
16
17
*
8
*
6
*
4
*
11
forces of wind and water that shape it (2:11*; 4:1516*), and to other animate creatures that
inhabit it with them (2:78*; 4:12*, 8*; 8:14*). In passions true embrace the world is not
recreated but reexperienced with heightened senses. In the intensity of committed love, mutually
shared between man and woman, there is no transforming deification of humankind, but sexual

*
5
*
11
*
15
16
*
7
until it is ready!
8
*
1
2
servility and alienation may be overcome (cf. Gen 3:1619*); through such love there is no self-
salvation from the forces of sin and death, but a vision of Gods creation become whole again
(cf. Gen 3:57*).
Human sexual fulfillment, fervently sought and consummated in reciprocal love between
woman and man: Yes, that is what the Song of Songs is about, in its literal sense and
theologically relevant meaning. We may rejoice that Scripture includes such an explicit view
among its varied witnesses to divine providence. But does the marvelous theological insight that
the Song opens up have broader significance? Should we dismiss altogether the Nachleben of the
text, the continuous though multi-faceted histories of its interpretation in both Judaism and
Christianity? Having reappropriated the literal meaning, can we still give any credence to those
who have heard the poetry speak eloquently of celibate love as well as connubial bliss, of divine-
human covenant as well as male-female sexual partnership, of spiritual as well as physical
rapture? It does not suffice to refute the Jewish and Christian interpretative traditions by pointing
to arbitrary assumptions and improbable readings in the work of particular commentators and
periods. Exaggerations, flawed premises, and outright errors in the exegetical quest to discover
the Songs fuller theological significance can be admitted, and labelled counter-productive.

*
16
17
And to the man he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the
tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil
you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19
By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were
taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
*
5
for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil.
6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and
that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some
to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
7
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made loincloths for themselves.
Genesis 3:57 (NRSV)
Nevertheless, as modern expositors we should be open to the possibility that our predecessors,
despite their foibles, may have caught a glimpse of theological reality that is not exhausted by
the literal sense of the Songs poetry.
396
Why should we be enslaved by the very methodology
that we claim has freed us from the tyranny of tradition?
If one grants that the consistent witnesses of earlier generations of interpreters should
challenge our exegetical methods and insights, as we have challenged theirs, then we take
another step toward identifying the broader scope of the Songs theological significance in
continuity with their perceptions. Within biblical traditions themselves, experiences of the world
that comprise human knowledge and experiences of God that nurture faith are always
interrelated.
397
Among the manifold ways this interrelationship comes to scriptural expression is
the recognition that human love and divine love mirror each other.
Even if we cannot speak of 8:6* as the Songs climax, the verse is properly regarded by most
interpreters as a high point. Here the power of love (ahb) is not only compared with the
relentless force of death, it is identified in the final construction of the verse as a flame of Yah
(alhebet[-]yh).
398
Tersely stated though it is, the insight is hermeneutically profound. It

396
While this is not the place to enter into broader discussions of recent developments in biblical
interpretation and hermeneutics generally, there are increasing indications of scholarly recognition that
historical-critical methodology does not in itself yield the exhaustive or final expository word: see, e.g.,
Walter Vogels, Les limites de la mthode historico-critique, Laval thologique et philosophique 36
(1980) 17394; and David Steinmetz, The Superiority of Precritical Exegesis, Theology Today 37 (1980)
2738. On the validity of a texts meaning beyond its original or historical sense, see Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Truth and Method (ed. and tr. Garrett Barden and John Cumming; New York: Seabury, 1975)
esp. 46091 *Supplement I: Hermeneutics and Historicism+; for an assessment of Paul Ricoeurs
hermeneutical contributions to interpretation of biblical texts, see John Dominic Crossan (ed.), The Book
of Job and Ricoeurs Hermeneutics (Semeia 19; Chico: Scholars, 1981), with a select bibliography, 2329.
In the present commentators judgment, the quest for the literal-historical sense of scriptural texts
should not be abandoned, even though the results will only be proximate and need not negate the value
of traditional interpretation. The critical endeavor remains the surest means we possess that the
topography of the text itself will not be overlooked in uncontrolled exegetical flights of fancy.
397
On this, see esp. the seminal remarks of Gerhard von Rad, Some Aspects of the Old Testament
World-View, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (tr. E. W. Trueman Dicken;
Edinburgh/London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965) 14465.
*
6
398
For this reading of the construction, which is at least defensible, see the comments in the pertinent
sections of Notes and Interpretation below, pp. 19192 and 197. Cf. also M. L. Ramlot, Le Cantique des
cantiques: une flamme de Yahve, RThom 64 (1964) 23959.
implies that the varied dimensions of human love described in the Songthe joy of presence and
the pain of absence, yearning for intimate partnership with the beloved, and even erotic desire
can be understood, mutatis mutandis, as reflective of Gods love.
The God of Israel transcended sex, but Israelite theology dared to use themes of human
sexual love and marriage as metaphors in portraying the covenant relationship. The familiar
formula of Leviticus 26:12*I will be your God, and you shall be my peopleparallels a
bridegrooms wedding vow and may even have been so derived.
399
Certainly Hosea and other
prophets depicted Yahweh as Israels proper spouse, an often scorned but unyielding lover
whose unrequited passion held open the promise of redemption. This imagery comes to
especially bold expression in the salvation oracle of Isaiah 62:45*, addressed to personified
Zion:
Never again shall you be called Forsaken,
nor shall your land any longer be called Desolate;
Rather, you shall be designated I Delight in Her,
and your land Espoused.
Indeed Yahweh takes delight in you,
and your land shall be espoused.
As a young man espouses a virgin,
your Builder shall espouse you;
As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.
God initiates and pursues a loving relationship with the community of faith. It is in terms of this
grand metaphor that Jewish and Christian interpretative traditions understood the Song to express

*
12
And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
Leviticus 26:12 (NRSV)
399
See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 8182,
esp. n. 6 and the studies there cited. On the Songs view of sexual love in relationship to covenantal
traditions, see Oswald Loretz, Die theologische Bedeutung des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 10 (1966) esp. 39
43.
*
4
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;but you shall
be called My Delight Is in Her,and your land Married;for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be
married.
5
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom
rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
Isaiah 62:45 (NRSV)
the communal brides response, her memories of the divine love that had first claimed her, and
her longing to experience always the joys of the lovers sublime presence.
In the final analysis, then, what links the literal sense of the Song to the expository visions of
synagogue and church is an exquisite insight: the love that forms human partnership and
community, and that sustains the whole of creation, is a gift of Gods own self.
400
But the biblical
poet should have the last words in introducing the Song and its meaning (5:1b*):
Eat, friends, drink!
Drink deeply of love!
The Song of Songs
Song of Songs
Translation
A complete, sequential translation of the Song of Songs is provided here for the convenience of
readers. The translation itself is relatively conservative, both stylistically and in its approach to
the wording and syntax of the M tradition. Words enclosed within parentheses () amplify the
sense of the literal Hebrew. Angle brackets are used to indicate places where the text of M
has been emended (for reasons discussed in the pertinent Notes to the individual commentary
sections).
Major divisions represent sections of the work as they are treated in the commentary. These
differ in many instances from the internal sectional divisions (pryt) represented in M as
follows (p = pt; s = stm): p 1:14*; s 1:58*; s 1:914*; s 1:152:7*; s 2:813*; s

400
See, e.g., Lev 19:1718*; Deut 6:45*; 7:611*; 10:1222*; 1 Kgs 10:69*; Jer 31:16*; Ps 146:510*;
John 15:517*; 1 Cor 13; 1 John 4:721*.
*
1
*
1
2
3
4
*

5
Solomon.
6
7
8
*
9
10
11
12
13
14
*
15
16
17
1
2
3
4
5
2:14*; s 2:1517*; s 3:15*; s 3:68*; s 3:911*; s 4:17*; s 4:811*; s 4:125:1*; s 5:26:3*; s
6:49*; s 6:10*; s 6:117:11*; s 7:128:4*; s 8:57*; s 8:810*; p 8:1114*.

6
7
until it is ready!
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
*
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
*
6
7
8
night.

*
9
10
11
*
8
9
10
11
*
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1

*
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
1

*
4
5
6
7
8
9
*
11
12
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7

8
9
10
*
11
12
13
1
2
3
4
*
5
6
7
*
Segments of the text which can be assigned with some certainty to specific speakers are
indicated by capital letters in the left margin: M = the man; W = the woman; and D = the
Daughters of Jerusalem. To the right of the translation, references indicate important lexical
and thematic correlations within the work itself.
The Song of Songs
1
1 The Song of Songs, by Solomon.
2 W Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
Truly, more pleasing is your love than wine.

The fragrance of your perfumes is pleasing,

flowing perfume, your name;
therefore the maidens love you.

Rightly do they love you.
Black am I, and beautiful, O Daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Qedar,
like the pavilions of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am blackish,
for the sun has burned me.


11
12
13
14

1:4; 4:10

4:10

1:2; 4:10

8:89

cf. 2:15; 7:13; 8:1112
7 W Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you pasture, where you rest at midday,
lest I become as one who covers herself
near the herds of your companions.
8 M If you do not know, O most beautiful of women,

follow the tracks of the flock,
and pasture your kids
near the tents of the shepherds.
To a mare of Pharaohs chariots
I compare you, my friend:
Lovely are your cheeks in pendants,
your neck, in beads;
Pendants of gold we will make for you,
along with silver ornaments.
12 W While the king was in his enclosure
A sachet of myrrh is my lover to me;
between my breasts he lies.
A cluster of henna is my lover to me,
in the vineyards of Engedi.
15 M Ah, you are beautiful, my friend;

ah, you are beautiful, your eyes are doves.

W Ah, you are beautiful, my lover, most pleasing!
Indeed our couch is verdant.
The beams of our house, cedars;
our rafters, cypresses.
2:1 I am a flower of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.
2 M As a lily among thorns,
so is my friend among women.

3 W As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,

He has brought me to the wine house,
and his banner over me is love.
Strengthen me with raisin cakes,

5:9

2:10, 13; 4:1, 7; 7:2, 7

4:1; 5:12

6:910

cf. 8:5
refresh me with apples,
for I am sick with love.



by the gazelles and hinds of the fields:
Do not arouse, do not stir up love,
until it be ready!
8 W Hark, my lover!
See, he comes:
Springing over the mountains,
leaping over the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle,

or a young stag.
See, he stands behind our wall,
looking through windows,
peering through lattices.
My lover responded to me:
(M) Arise, my friend,

my beautiful one, and come!

See, the winter is past,
the rains are over, gone.

The blossoms appear in the land,

the time for pruning has arrived;
The song of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree yields its figs;
the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my friend,


6:8

8:3

3:5; 5:8; 8:4

2:17; 8:14

2:13; 7:12

1:15; 4:1, 7; 7:2, 7

cf. 5:6

6:11; 7:13

2:10
My dove, in the clefts of the rock,

in the recesses of the cliff,
Let me see your face

and hear your voice,
For your voice is pleasant
and your face lovely.
15 W Catch us the foxes,
the little foxes
that damage the vineyards,

when our vineyards are in bloom.
16 My lover is mine
and I am his

who browses among the lilies.

Until the day breathes

and the shadows flee,
Turn, my lover;
be like a gazelle or a young stag,

upon the mountains of Bether.
3
1 W Upon my bed at night

I sought him whom my soul loves,
I sought him, but I did not find him.
I will rise and make the rounds of the city;
in the streets and crossings
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
Him whom my soul loves-have you seen him?
when I found him whom my soul loves.

5:2; 6:9

8:13

cf. 1:6; 7:13; 8:1112

6:3; 7:11

4:5; 6:3

4:6

2:9; 8:14

5:28
until i brought him to the house of my mother,



until it be ready!
6 (?) What is this coming up from the desert,

like a column of smoke?
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
from all kinds of exotic powders?
This is Solomons litter:
trained for war;
King Solomon made himself
a carriage from Lebanon wood.
Its columns he made of silver,
its roof of gold;
Its seat of purple,
its interior woven with love.
O Daughters of Jerusalem, go forth!
Look, O Daughters of Zion!
Upon King Solomon
in the crown with which his mother crowned him,
On the day of his marriage,
on the day of the joy of his heart.
4
1 M Ah, you are beautiful, my friend,

ah, beautiful.
Your eyes are doves

8:2

6:9; 8:5

2:7; 5:8; 8:4

6:10; 8:5
Angle brackets are used to indicate places where the text of M has been amended.

1:15; 2:10, 13; 4:7; 7:2, 7

1:15; 5:12
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats

that stream down Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep to be shorn,

that comes up from the washing,
All of them in pairs,
and none of them missing.
Like a scarlet thread, your lips,

and your mouth, lovely;
Like a cut of pomegranate, your cheek

behind your veil.

built in courses;
Your breasts are like two fawns,
the twins of a gazelle,

browsing among the lilies.


I shall go to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of incense.
You are all beautiful, my friend,

and there is no blemish in you.
With me from Lebanon, O bride,

with me from Lebanon shall you come!
Come down from the top of Amanah,
from the top of Senir and Hermon;

6:5

6:6

4:11

6:7

7:5

7:4

2:16; 6:3

2:17

1:15; 2:10, 13; 4:1; 7:2, 7

4:912
From dens of lions,
from ramparts of leopards.
You have ravished my heart, my sister, bride!
You have ravished my heart with one (glance) of your eyes,
with one bead of your necklace.
How beautiful is your love, my sister, bride!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine,

and the fragrance of your perfumes, than any spices.

Your lips drip honey, O bride;

honey and milk are under your tongue.

The fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.


with choice fruits:
Henna with nard,
nard and saffron;
Cane and cinnamon,
with all scented woods;
Myrrh and aloes,
with all finest spices.
A garden fountain,

a well of fresh water,
flowing from Lebanon!
Arise, north wind,
and come south wind!
Blow upon my garden,
that its spices may flow.
W Let my lover come to his garden

and eat its choice fruits.

1:2, 4

1:3

4:3

5:1

4:912; 6:2

4:15

4:12

5:1; 6:2, 11; 8:13
5
1 M I have come to my garden, my sister, bride!


(?) Eat, friends, drink!

2 W I was sleeping, but my heart was awake:

Hark! My lover knocking!
(M) Open to me, my sister, my friend,
my dove, my perfect one!

For my head is wet with the dew;
my hair, with the moisture of the night.
3 (W) I have taken off my clothes;
am I then to put them on?
I have washed my feet;
am I then to soil them?
4 W My lover put his hand through the hole,
and my heart trembled on account of him.
I got up to open to my lover,
and my hands dripped myrrh;
My fingers, flowing myrrh

on the handles of the lock.
I opened to my lover,
but my lover had turned, gone!
I swooned when he left.
I sought him but I did not find him;

I called out after him, but he did not answer me.
It was I the watchmen came upon,
They struck me, wounded me;
they tore off the mantle I had on,
the watchmen on the walls.

4:16; 6:2, 11

4:11

cf. 1:2; 4:10, 1516

3:15

2:14; 5:2; 6:9

5:13

3:12


9 D How does your lover differ from any lover,
O most beautiful of women?

How does your lover differ from any lover,
that you adjure us so?
10 W My lover is radiant and ruddy,
outstanding among ten thousand.
His head is gold, pure gold;
his hair, palm fronds,
black as a raven.
His eyes, like doves

by the water streams.
His teeth, washed in milk,
set in place.
His cheeks, like beds of spice
that put forth aromatic blossoms.
His lips, lilies
that drip flowing myrrh.

His arms, rods of gold
adorned with Tarshish stones.
His belly, a work of ivory
covered with sapphires.
His legs, columns of alabaster
set in golden sockets.
His stature, like Lebanon,
select as the cedars.
His mouth is sweetness;
he is all delight.
Such is my lover, such my friend,
O Daughters of Jerusalem!
6
1 D Where has your lover gone,
Where has your lover turned,
that we may seek him with you?

2:7; 3:5; 8:4

2:5

1:8

1:15; 4:1

5:5
2 W My lover has gone down to his garden,

to the beds of spice;
To browse in the garden,
and to gather lilies.
I am my lovers,

and he is mine;
he browses among the lilies.

4 M Beautiful are you, my friend, as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem,
awe-inspiring as visions!

Turn your eyes away from me,
for they disturb me.

that stream down from Gilead.
Your teeth like a flock of ewes

that come up from the washing,
All of them in pairs
Like a cut of pomegranate,

your cheek behind your veil.
Sixty are the queens,
eighty the concubines,
and maidens without number
Unique is my dove, my perfect one!

The unique one of her mother,
the chosen of the one who bore her.

When women see her, they praise her;
queens and concubines, they bless her:

4:165:1; 6:11; 8:13

2:16; 7:11

2:16; 4:5

6:10

4:1

4:2

4:3

2:14; 5:2

3:4; 8:5

3:6; 8:5
Pure as the sun,

11 W To the nut-garden I came down

to see the fresh growth of the valley,
To see if the vines were budding,

if the pomegranates were in blossom.
Before I knew it,
my heart made me
the blessed one of the princes people.
7
1[6:13] (?) Turn, turn, O Shulammite;
turn, turn, that we may gaze upon you!
W Why do you gaze upon the Shulammite
as upon the dance of the two camps?"
2[7:1] M How beautiful your sandaled feet,

O noble daughter!
The curves of your thighs, like rings,
the handiwork of an artist.
Your breasts like two fawns,

twins of a gazelle.
Your neck like a tower of ivory;

your eyes, pools in Heshbon
by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
Your nose like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.
On you, your head is like Carmel,
and the hair of your head, like purple
a king is caught in tresses.
How beautiful, and how pleasing,

6:4

4:165:1; 6:11

2:12; 7:13

1:15; 2:10, 13; 4:1, 7; 7:7

4:5

4:4

1:15; 2:10, 13; 4:1, 7; 7:2
O loved one, delightful daughter!
Your very stature is like a palm tree,
and your breasts, clusters.
I said, I will climb the palm tree,
I will take hold of its branches;
Let your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
and the fragrance of your breath like apples;
Your mouth like the best wine.
W Flowing smoothly for my lover,
spreading over my lips and my teeth.
I am my lovers,

and towards me is his desire.
Come, my lover, let us away to the field;

let us spend the night in the villages.


The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
and at our door are all choice fruits;
New with the old,
my lover, have I stored up for you.
8
1 Would that you were my brother,
nursed at my mothers breasts!
Were I to find you in public,
I would kiss you
and no one would despise me.
I would lead you, bring you,
to my mothers house

(where) you would teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
my pomegranate juice.

2:16; 6:3

2:10

cf. 1:6; 2:15; 8:1112

2:12; 6:11

3:4

2:6
his right hand embraces me.

until it be ready!
5 (?) Who is this that comes up from the desert,

leaning upon her lover?
(?) Under the apple tree I aroused you;

there your mother conceived you,
there the one who bore you conceived.

6 W Place me as a seal on your heart,
as a seal on your arm.
Strong as Death is love;
intense as Sheol is ardor.
Its shafts are shafts of fire,
a flame of Yah.
Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor rivers sweep it away.
Were one to give all his wealth for love,
he would be thoroughly despised.
8 (W) We have a little sister
and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister,
on the day she will be spoken for?
If she is a wall,
we shall build upon her a silver turret.
If she is a door,
we shall board her up with a cedar plank.
I am a wall,
and my breasts like towers.
Then I have become in his eyes
as one who finds peace.
11 (?) Solomon had a vineyard

in Baal-hamon.
He gave the vineyard to the keepers;
one would pay for its fruit
a thousand pieces of silver.
My own vineyard is at my disposal
the thousand (pieces) for you, Solomon,

2:7; 3:5; 5:8

3:6; 6:10

cf. 2:3

3:4; 6:9

cf. 1:6; 2:15; 7:13
and two hundred for the keepers of its fruit.
13 M You who dwell in the garden,


let me hear your voice!
14 W Flee, my lover;
be like a gazelle or a young stag

upon the mountains of spices.
Superscription:
Solomons Finest Song?
The Song of Songs 1:1*
1

cf. 4:165:1; 6:11

2:14

2:9, 17
1
*
The Song of Songs, by Solomon.
Interpretation
In the superscription, an editor has supplied the work with a name and designated Solomon as its
author. Although from a historical-critical perspective we may judge this information to be
extraneous or secondary and unreliable, we must nonetheless reckon with its import. The

*

, which serves as the books title in Jewish tradition (e.g., b. Baba Batra 146), is translated
literally in G ( ), G (tebhat tebht), and E (canticum canticorum, whence ultimately
derives the designation Canticles). The Hebrew idiom, comprised of singular and plural forms of the
same noun in construct, is a typical expression of the superlative (GHG 133i; HSyn 47, 80). Cf., for
example, (the God of Gods and the Lord of Lords) in Deut 10:17*;
(vanity of vanities) in Eccl 1:2* and 12:8*, and Aramaic (the king of kings)
in Ezr 7:12* and Dan 2:37*.
The construction (so M with the full support of the ancient versions) is quite
intelligible as a relative clause attributing the work to Solomon. Use of the independent relative particle
sharply distinguishes the superscription from the text of the Song proper where the proclitic form
is regularly employed (e.g., 1:6*, 12*; 6:5*). The preposition is most easily taken to be the lamed
auctoris (cf. GHB 130b). Just as many editorial superscriptions in the psalter exhibit to claim
Davidic authorship (e.g., Ps 3:1*; 4:1*; 5:1*), so Solomon is named as the Songs author. Other senses of
the preposition are possible if less likely here: for/dedicated to Solomon or about/concerning
Solomon (cf. the use of to introduce a topic in 1 Chr 24:20*, *and concerning
the rest of the Levites+ and especially in Ugaritic literary rubrics, e.g., lbl, About Baal, CTA 6.1.1 [= UT
49.1]).
The discrete superscription virtually disappears in the NEB, which construes v 2a* as a purpose
clause linked to v 1* and renders: I will sing the song of all songs to Solomon that he may smother me
with kisses. In addition to positing an awkward syntactical construction, this reading involves a textually
unsupported emendation of M. The particle is revocalized to yield , a first-person singular Qal
imperfect of the verb (to sing); cf. L. H. Brockington, The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament: The
Readings Adopted by the Translators of the New English Bible (Oxford University; Cambridge University,
1973) 172. This conjectural emendation, to yield indicative )( or subjunctive/cohortative
(cf. Ex 15:1*), was proposed a generation ago by Gottfried Kuhn, Erklrung des Hohen Liedes (Leipzig: A.
Deichert *Werner Scholl+, 1926) 8: Das Lied der Lieder will Ich singen dem Salomo; cf. also Max Haller,
Das Hohe Lied, Die Fnf Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1940) 26. But
alteration of M seems neither necessary nor productive of better sense.
superscription already constitutes an ancient, if not original, frame of reference for
interpretation of the poetry which follows.
Whether individually or as a collection, the poems which comprise the Song may have
enjoyed an earlier existence in oral or written form. We can speculate about such matters and
perhaps even reach some tenable conclusions regarding the precanonical setting, function, and
intention of the poetry, especially with the help of comparable ancient Near Eastern sources now
available to us. Yet the fact remains that an ancient editor labeled the work a poem or song
(r). This is not a strict genre classification, necessarily meaning a lyric composition set to
music or the like,
1
but it does indicate that the poetry was thought to constitute a singular literary
creation. In this view, the unity is one of overall form and not merely of common authorship or
coherent subject mattersuch as is found in the various collections of proverbial sayings
which make up the book of Proverbs (cf. 1:1*; 10:1*; 24:23*; 25:1*; 30:1*; 31:1*) or even the
anthologies of a particular prophets utterances (cf. especially Am 1:1*).

1
See above, p. 3.
*
1
The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
Proverbs 1:1 (NRSV)
*
1
The proverbs of Solomon. A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mothers grief.
*
23
These also are sayings of the wise: Partiality in judging is not good.
*
1
These are other proverbs of Solomon that the officials of King Hezekiah of Judah copied.
*
1
The words of Agur son of Jakeh. An oracle. Thus says the man: I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God.
How can I prevail?
*
As Audet has remarked, the Song of Songs is less an appropriate title for the work than an
expression of great esteem for it.
2
In the editors appreciative view, this particular song is the
greatest or finest song. What is the probable frame of reference for this use of the
superlative? According to Origen and the traditional Jewish Targum, the Song surpasses all
divinely inspired hymnic compositions preserved in scripture which were authored before it,
including the pentateuchal songs or poems attributed to Moses.
3
It is much more likely, however,
that the editor had in mind the specific tradition of king Solomons prolific literary productivity.
Thus 1 Kings 5:12[4:32]* reports that Solomon, with the superlative wisdom granted to him by
God, uttered three thousand proverb(s) [ml], while his song(s) [r] were a thousand and
five. If this is indeed the relevant context for the comparison, the editorial superscription deems
the work to be the greatest of Solomons songs.
The editorial attribution of the work to Solomon no doubt represents a certain historicizing
interest, comparable to that exhibited in many Psalm superscriptions. The assignment of
individual Psalms to David reflects the traditional view that he was himself a skilled musician
and composer as well as being a great patron of the hymnic arts.
4
In some cases, though, the
headings are considerably more specific. For example, Psalm 63 is a lament with petition for
deliverance from enemies; while the text itself displays no overt connection with particular

1
The words of King Lemuel. An oracle that his mother taught him:
*
1
The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the
days of King Uzziah of Judah and in the days of King Jeroboam son of Joash of Israel, two years before
the earthquake.
Amos 1:1 (NRSV)
2
Audet, Love, 81: It was a name which bore witness to the recognized merit of the composition, and
to the affection for it, bred of long use or a long tradition. Canticle of Canticles is not the authors name
for it, but that given it by an editor. Audet then suggests (8283) that 1:2a* (May he kiss me with the
kisses of his mouth) preserves the more ancient designation of the work or the melody to which it was
sung in the context of Israelite/Jewish marriage celebrations.
3
See above, p. 19 n. 81.
*
32
1 Kings 4:32 (NRSV)
4
See, e.g., 1 Sam 16:1423*; 2 Sam 22; Am 6:5*; 1 Chr 15:16*; 16:736*; 2 Chr 29:27*; Sir 47:810*. Cf.
James L. Mays, The David of the Psalms, Int 40 (1986) 143155.
persons or historical circumstances, it bears an editorial preface attributing its composition to
David when he was in the Judaean wilderness, presumably seeking refuge from king Saul.
5

Such redactional contributions to the Psalms appear to reflect scribal activity during the later
Second Temple period, involving a kind of inner-biblical exegesis in which connections were
sought between works of traditional hymnody and concrete events reported in narrative sources.
6

In the case of the Song, association with Solomon would have been obvious, given the
description of his elaborate procession in 3:711* and other direct references (8:1112*; cf.
1:5*) as well as possible allusions to him in the poetry.
7
Indeed, this line of reasoning may be
supposed to have informed the historical interpretation of the Song attributed to Theodore of

5
Cf. also Ps 3:1*; 7:1*; 18:1*; 34:1*; 51:1*; 54:1*; 56:1*; etc.
6
See Brevard S. Childs, Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis, JSS 16 (1971) 137150; and also Elieser
Slomovic, Toward an Understanding of the Formation of Historical Titles in the Book of Psalms, ZAW
91 (1979) 350380.
*
7
8
night.
9
10
11
*
11
12
7
Cf. Loretz (6162), who claims that all references in the Song to king, as well as those to Solomon
per se, are redactional touches, introduced in light of the late attribution of the work to Solomon. The
mention of King Solomon in 3:9*, 11* (cf. 3:7*) does suggest a labored identification, but wholesale
elimination of the term king would require substantial emendation of the text (see, e.g., 1:12*).
Mopsuestia, according to which the work celebrates Solomons marriage to the Shulammite
(7:1*[6:13*]) who is taken to be a dark-skinned Egyptian princess (cf. 1:56* and also 1 Kgs
3:1*; 9:16*, 23*).
8
Very similar are the hypotheses which have wanted to link the love poetry of

*
13
*
13
*
5
Solomon.
6
*
1
Solomon made a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt; he took Pharaohs daughter and
brought her into the city of David, until he had finished building his own house and the house of the
Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.
1 Kings 3:1 (NRSV)
*
16
(Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer and burned it down, had killed the Canaanites
who lived in the city, and had given it as dowry to his daughter, Solomons wife;
1 Kings 9:16 (NRSV)
*
23
These were the chief officers who were over Solomons work: five hundred fifty, who had charge of
the people who carried on the work.
the Song with one or another of Solomons supposed amorous adventuresfor example, a
romantic liaison with the Queen of Sheba (though biblical tradition describes their friendly
relationship only as based on mutual intellectual and commercial interests),
9
or a love affair with
Abishag, the comely Shunammite maiden who had tended David during his final days (1 Kgs
1:14*, 15*) and had been sought as a wife by Adonijah, Solomons chief rival for the throne (1
Kgs 2:17*, 2122*).
10
Biblical tradition certainly remarks on Solomons notoriety as a lover of

1 Kings 9:23 (NRSV)
8
See above, p. 22. Cf. the Jewish folkloristic traditions (among them the notion that the marriage
occurred on the very day of the Jerusalem Temples consecration) summarized by Louis Ginzberg, The
Legends of the Jews, Vol. 4 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913) 12829; Vol. 6
(1928) 280281.
9
1 Kgs 10:113*. Cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 8.165175; and also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of
the Jews, Vol. 4 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913) 142149.
*
1
King David was old and advanced in years; and although they covered him with clothes, he could not
get warm.
2
So his servants said to him, Let a young virgin be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the
king, and be his attendant; let her lie in your bosom, so that my lord the king may be warm.
3
So they searched for a beautiful girl throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the
Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
4
The girl was very beautiful. She became the kings attendant and served him, but the king did not know
her sexually.
1 Kings 1:14 (NRSV)
*
15
So Bathsheba went to the king in his room. The king was very old; Abishag the Shunammite was
attending the king.
1 Kings 1:15 (NRSV)
*
17
He said, Please ask King Solomonhe will not refuse youto give me Abishag the Shunammite as my
wife.
1 Kings 2:17 (NRSV)
*
women, both foreign and domestic (1 Kgs 11:18*; cf. Deut 17:17*); it is not difficult to imagine
that ancient interpreters, no less than some moderns, speculated on possible connections between

21
She said, Let Abishag the Shunammite be given to your brother Adonijah as his wife.
22
King Solomon answered his mother, And why do you ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask
for him the kingdom as well! For he is my elder brother; ask not only for him but also for the priest
Abiathar and for Joab son of Zeruiah!
10
Cf. Harold H. Rowley, The Meaning of the Shulammite, AJSL 56 (1939) 8491.
*
1
King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite,
Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
2
from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the Israelites, You shall not enter into
marriage with them, neither shall they with you; for they will surely incline your heart to follow their
gods; Solomon clung to these in love.
3
Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned
away his heart.
4
For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not
true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.
5
Ammonites.
6
So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not completely follow the Lord, as his
father David had done.
7
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the
abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.
8
He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.
*
17
And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold
he must not acquire in great quantity for himself.
the Songs love poetry and Solomons love life. But it seems futile to pursue this course, if only
because the male protagonist of the Song is never identified with Solomon, either directly or by
substantive allusion. More importantly, perhaps, the editorial superscription itself betrays no
interest in such matters.
If, as seems most likely, the superscription alludes specifically to the tradition in 1 Kings
5:914[4:2934]*, then ascription of the Song to Solomon involves a claim for the sapiential
character or significance of the work. Both Audet and Childs have commented on the possible
import of this.
11
They argue that the Song was supposed to exemplify Solomons divinely
granted insight into the nature of human affairs, attesting to the wisdom (okm) which made
him the envy of savants of the ancient world. For Childs, the superscription not only thus
connects the Song with the larger corpus of biblical wisdom literature but also functions as a
hermeneutical guide, establishing the canonical context within which the Song is to be
interpreted. This, he argues, rules out an understanding of the love poetry as secular songs with
only humanistic significance; in equal measure it calls into question allegorical efforts to
construct a lofty spiritual sense, removed from the physical concreteness of the texts imagery, or
to discover therein a broader view of salvation history (since the prophetic theme of Gods love
for the covenant people is alien to the sapiential corpus of scripture). Rather, Childs avers, The
Song is wisdoms reflection on the joyful and mysterious nature of love between a man and a
woman within the institution of marriage.
12
The parsimony of Childs approach to the Song is
not unattractive. It has the merit of defining a context for interpretation which is at once
observable in the biblical tradition as we have received it and relevant to issues of concern to
contemporary theology and ethics.

*
29
God gave Solomon very great wisdom, discernment, and breadth of understanding as vast as the sand
on the seashore,
30
so that Solomons wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east, and all the wisdom of
Egypt.
31
He was wiser than anyone else, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, children
of Mahol; his fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations.
32
33
He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he
would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish.
34
People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the
earth who had heard of his wisdom.
11
Audet, Le sens, and Love, 7981; Childs, Introduction, 573576.
12
Childs, Introduction, 575. See above, p. 99 n. 384.
A Love More Pleasing Than Wine
3

1
2
*
W Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
3
*

M (Qal jussive, , plus pronominal suffix: Let him kiss me) makes appropriate sense in
context. Vocalization of the consonantal text to yield (Hipil jussive, , plus pronominal
suffix: Let him give me to drink) is supported by Gordis (78) and apparently also NEB (that he may
smother me); cf. the more radical emendation (Hipil imperative, , plus pronominal
suffix: Make me drink or Drown me), accepted by Karl Budde (Das Hohelied in E. Kautzsch and A.
Bertholet [eds.], Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testament, Vol. 2 [Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck),
4
1923] 392), Friedrich Horst (BHK, 1201 n. a to 1:2*), and others. There is a wordplay on
(drink) and (kiss) in 8:12*; it may be that 1:2* already suggests this play (cf. also 5:1*), but
nothing is gained by alteration of M.
The preposition in (with the kisses) is partitive (GHB 133e), and it contributes to
the alliteration ( ).
Truly, more pleasing is your love than wine.
3
*
The fragrance of your perfumes is pleasing,

The introductory (truly) is to be taken as asseverative or emphatic, rather than causal (Albright,
Archaic Survivals, 2; cf. HSyn 449).
Pleasing is literally good ( ). This word can mean sweet in relation to wine, as argued by
Albright (Archaic Survivals, 2) on the basis of the Ugaritic designations: yn b is sweet wine in
contradistinction to yn d l b, wine that is not sweet (cf. UT 1084.123). But this distinction could
depend on a quality other than sweetness. Here good need not be narrowed in meaning; cf. also
7:10*[9*].
Both G and B read consonantal as , your breasts (cf. Ezek 23:21*; Prov 5:19*). But the
vocalization of M is preferable, deriving the noun from the root . Thus one has (my love), as
the favorite term used by the woman of the man (1:13*, 14*, 16*; etc.), and in the plural to
designate acts or expressions of love (1:4*; 4:10*; 5:1*; etc.).
The pronominal shift in v 2* with reference to the male lover, from third to second person (his
mouth your love), does not require emendation in the interest of consistency; such shifts (enallage)
are well attested in Hebrew poetry (e.g., Ps 23:13*, 45*, 6*), and elsewhere in the Song (1:4*; 2:4*;
etc.).
*

The of M can be understood according to traditional Hebrew grammar as a kind of dative of
reference (GHB 133d): with respect to fragrance, your perfumes are pleasing. But there are other
possibilities. The preposition can be taken as asseverative or emphatic (HSyn 283), and thus parallel
to in v 2*: indeed, more pleasing (than) the scent of your perfumes. This presupposes that the
force of the comparative carries over into v 3*, and a parallel with v 2b* emerges. Albright (Archaic
Survivals, 2 n. 4) and Pope (299300) interpret the as comparative, on the basis of Ugaritic usage. The
reading of 6QCant deserves notice: ; along with B (unguentis optimis) it fails to represent
the pronominal suffix your, present in M. On this reading can be interpreted as an attributive
adjective, fine/precious ointments (cf. 2 Kgs 20:13*=Isa 39:2*). Hence one could translate: Truly your
love is finer than wine, indeed (finer than) the scent of precious ointments.
The repetition of (perfume) is particularly effective, and it forms a play on (name).
However, flowing is a doubtful translation; would seem to be the Hopal form of (pour
out), but it is not in agreement with , which is always masculine. Hence changes have been
flowing perfume, your name;
therefore the maidens love you.
4
*

suggested: (used in Est 2:3*, 9*, 12* for oil of purification) or some form of . None of the
changes is advisable: G () and B (effusum) are guides to the meaning, poured out. In his
restoration of 6QCant, Baillet proposes ] [ (cf. BHS, 1325 n. c-c to 1:3*), which
is semantically cogent, since means perfume or a mixture of aromatic herbs (cf. Exod 30:25*; 1
Chr 9:30*, and inCant 5:13*), but it is quite difficult to discern support for the reading in the
published photograph (Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les petites grottes de Qumran,
[DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962] Vol. 1, 113; Vol. 2, pl. 23/6).
*

The woman addresses the man and perhaps associates him with herself when she cries let us run.
Again there is a transition, this time from second to third person, and the woman speaks of him as
king.
There is not sufficient reason to follow the NEB, which interprets as bring me (so E and
); this would also involve a change in the pronominal suffix at the end of the verse (your instead of
his chambers). The plural (chambers) is a plural of generalization (GHB 136j), a frequent
occurrence in Cant (1:17*, etc.; cf. Joon, 418 n. 4).
As in v 2*, G interpreted as breasts and gave an ad hoc interpretation of the Hipil form
: We will love your breasts (more than wine). Gordis (78), following Ibn Janah, proposed the
meaning inhale on the basis Of Lev 24:7*; Isa 66:3*; etc. This interpretation is reflected in NJV and in
Pope (304305). However, the Hipil of (remember) more commonly means praise, celebrate,
which seems equally appropriate here.
The final two words of v 4* have generated a variety of interpretations in the ancient versions and in
modern translations. The reading of M ( ) is presupposed but differently interpreted in
B (the upright love you) and in G (righteousness loves you), and in E (and more than the upright,
your lovecontinuing the thought of the previous line). A previously unattested variant appears in
6QCant: )( ; perhaps this can be rendered, more than the upright (are) loved.
Gordis (7879) and NJV interpret as a type of wine, because it is associated with wine in
7:10*[9*] and also in Prov 23:31*. The present translation understands as an abstract
adverbial accusative, rightly or with right (cf. Ps 58:2*; 75:3*, and GHB 126d).
Rightly do they love you.
5
*
Black am I, and beautiful, O Daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Qedar,
like the pavilions of Solomon.
6
*
Do not stare at me because I am blackish,

*

(black) is a feminine singular adjective, indicating that the woman speaks. Here and
elsewhere in biblical Hebrew it designates color, not race. In 5:11* it is used of the mans hair (black as
a raven), and in Job 30:30* the cognate verb describes Jobs blackened skin, which is paralleled with
the heat that devours his body. That the womans blackness is an effect of the sun becomes explicit in v
6*. The woman continues describing herself: and beautiful. It is not clear that she intends to institute
a contrast, black but beautiful, which is a possible translation of (adopted by B sed). The comparisons
that follow can be understood of both color and beauty.
The (pavilions) are fabric or animal skin, stretched out over poles to form the roof and
walls of a tent (cf. Isa 54:2*; Ps 104:2*). The word is frequently parallel to (tent*s+), e.g., Jer
4:20*; Hab 3:7*; in the singular form it is used in the Priestly tradition for the coverings of the tent-
shrine (e.g., Exod 26:110*).
Qedar ( ) designates a nomadic tribe of the Syro-Arabian desert, mentioned frequently in the
Bible (Gen 25:13*; Isa 21:16*; Jer 49:28*; etc.) and also in Assyrian records (ANET, 298). The tents of
these Bedouin would have been made from black goat skins (cf. Exod 26:7*).
The interpretation of consonantal as Solomon has the support of the ancient versions as
well as the M vocalization. In order to secure better parallelism (with Qedar), many modern
translations and commentators prefer to read . This name (Salmah, or NEB Shalmah)
designates a south Arabian nomadic tribe mentioned in ancient Near Eastern records and later Jewish
sources (e.g., Tg. Onq. to Gen 15:19*; Num 24:21*).
*

Although the woman presumably addresses the Daughters, the verb (stare) is masculine
plural in form; the second person feminine plural ending is rare and never is used before a pronominal
suffix; cf. GHB 63a, 150a. This indifference to gender occurs several times in the Song (3:5*, 15*; etc.).
J. Cheryl Exum (Asseverative al in Canticles 1,6? Bib 62 [1981] 416419) has suggested that the initial
should be read as an emphatic rather than a negative particle, thus reversing the sense of the
construction: Look at me that I am black However, neither syntax nor context commends such an
interpretation.
for the sun has burned me.
Interpretation
The dialogue in vv 26* exhibits a bewildering shift in persons (enallage) which creates
difficulty in establishing the identity of the speakers. There may even be two units: vv 24*, with

Black/blackish is an attempt to preserve the play on words in vv 56*: / ; Exum
(Analysis, 71) calls attention to the chiastic use of with these two words, and also the chiastic
placement of and in v 6*.
In the only other places it occurs (Job 20:9*; 28:7*), the root designates see. The ancient
versions had trouble with it (G , look across, despise (?); B decoloravit, discolor). On the
basis of a permutation of and , frequent in Aramaic, one can understand as the equivalent of
, with the meaning of burn (cf. , , E dwkmny).
The Masoretic vocalization of ) ( understands it as the Nipal of , burn, be angry;
cf. Isa 41:11*. Vocalization as the Nipal of , be angry ( ) is also possible.
The short form of the relative pronoun, , occurs thirty-two times in the Song, three times in this
verse alone (rendered because in the first two instances). The final occurrence, (my own),
emphasizes the first person pronominal suffix in my vineyard (literally, my vineyard which belongs to
me).
*
2
3
4
5
Solomon.
6
*
hbk (they) love you, serving as an inclusio to bind vv 34* together), and vv 56*, the
discourse of the woman to the Daughters of Jerusalem. If the maidens of v 3* are to be
understood as the Daughters of Jerusalem (v 5*), one may regard dialogue as the bond among all
these lines.

2
3
4
*
3
4
*
5
Solomon.
6
*
3
*
5
Solomon.
The genre of vv 24* is best classified as a song of yearning: the woman yearns for the
mans kisses (let him kiss me) and his presence (draw me), and proclaims how lovable he is
(fragrance, name, love). The genre of vv 56* is self-description.
1

The life setting escapes us. Krinetzki identifies the maidens with the companions of the bride,
and proposes that the setting is the bringing of the bride to the house of her betrothed.
2
Similarly,
Wrthwein understands vv 24* as a reply to the bridegrooms invitation to move to his house.
But such reconstruction is too specific; nothing in the text really demands it. Verses 24* are
best understood as a soliloquy by the woman; the physical presence of the man is not necessarily
indicated. Verses 56* are directly addressed to the Daughters of Jerusalem who are present,
either physically or in spirit.
2* The woman expresses a desire to experience the signs of love. It is clear that mouth-kisses
are meant, but nose-kissing is also known from Egyptian sources. The opening line certainly
plunges in medias res, but this strong expression of the womans desire is appropriate in view of
the tenor of the rest of the work.
3

The comparison of love to wine means that his caresses and affection provide her more
pleasure than even the staple of Israelite life, wine. In 4:10* the man will return the compliment
with the same comparison.

1
For these respective genre designations, cf. Horst, Formen, 186 and 182.
2
L. Krinetzki, 85.
Wrthwein Ernst Wurthwein, Das Hohelied in Ernst Wurthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger. Die fnf
Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1969) 2571.
*
2
3
Bernard of Clairvaux has caught the spirit of this passionate opening of the Song: The favors I have
received are far above what I deserve, but they are less than what I long for. It is desire that drives me
on, not reason. Please do not accuse me of presumption if I yield to this impulse of love. My shame
indeed rebukes me, but love is stronger than all. I am well aware that he is a king who loves justice; but
headlong love does not wait for judgement, is not chastened by advice, not shackled by shame nor
subdued by reason. I ask, I crave, I implore; let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth (Sermon 9.2 [tr.
CFS 4, 54]).
*
10
3* Perfume is literally oil, which was used along with spices by both males and females.
The term suggests the ambience of love and the well-being of the man and woman.
Although the word flowing is problematical, the intention is to intensify in some way the
compliment that has just been made; now his very name, or person, is itself perfume.
The woman shows a generous and non-jealous attitude toward her lover. Although the
reference to maidens is very general, it is possible that the Daughters of Jerusalem (v 6*) are
meant in the context. The love that other women have for the man is noted again in v 4*.
4* The woman has just addressed the man, and now the immediate use of the first plural leaves
the scene in ambiguity. It is not certain whether she is associating the maidens with herself, or
(more likely) speaking of only herself and the man she calls king.
4
The transition from
imperative to indicative is sharp, but it highlights the intimacy which the lovers enjoy. The
woman feels confident enough to involve the maidens (let us exult) in her joyous praise of the
man. The catch word for vv 34* is love, as shown by the repetition of hbwk at the end of
each verse; noteworthy also is the repetition of ddyk myyn.
56* These lines are bound together by the play on rrrt (black/blackish). The genre
is self-description, which leads into an admonition to the Daughters of Jerusalem. The mention
of the brothers of the woman forms an inclusio for the whole work, since their words are quoted
in 8:10*. Although the Daughters of Jerusalem are addressed, they do not reply. They have
hardly any role except to move the dialogue along; these lines could even be regarded as a
soliloquy of the woman.
The comparison of the womans color to the (black) tents of Qedar and Solomon/Salmah is
somewhat exotic, but no more so than other comparisons in the Song. Her explanation is simply

*
6
*
4
4
See the discussion of the theme of the king fiction in the Introduction, above p. 83.
*
10
that she has been exposed to the harshness of the sun, incurred when her brothers appointed her
as caretaker of the vineyards. There is no basis in the text for inferences about racial color.
5

The effect of the sun upon the womans body is an adequate explanation of her statement that
she had failed to watch over her own vineyard, namely her own self. The term vineyard occurs
again in 2:15* and 8:1112*. There seems to be a clear play on the word, which refers to the
woman. This is also suggested by the emphatic ell (which is mine) in 1:6* and 8:12*. One
can detect two levels of meaning here. The woman has not protected herself from the sun, and
neither has she kept her vineyard (herself) from her lover. She has given herself freely and
responsibly to her lover. This meaning gains added support from the role played by the brothers,
who are angry with her (1:6*) and officiously decide about her future in 8:89*. Her statement

5
The erudite and lengthy discussion on black goddesses offered by Pope (307318) is simply wide of
the mark; cf. Keel, 5355. J. Cheryl Exum (Asseverative al in Canticles 1, 6? Bib 62 [1981] 416419)
points out that the only ostensibly unfavourable comment on the womans appearance is found in 1:6*;
elsewhere her beauty is frequently praised. Hence Exum would look also for an expression of pride in
the appearance of the woman in 1:6*. In this regard, the comment of G. Krinetzki (9) merits
consideration: In the role of a vine-dresser, a young woman reinterprets in a teasing style and in favor
of herself the reigning beauty concept of light colored skin which prevailed in the city (you daughters of
Jerusalem).
*
15
*
11
12
*
12
*
8
spoken for?
here, as also in 8:10*, is a curt comment for her meddlesome brothers. Pope writes that the
well-attested sexual symbolism of vineyard and field strongly suggest [sic] that the purport of
her statement is that she has not preserved her own virginity.
6
This hardly does justice to the
delicacy of the text; it is doubtful that guarding a vineyard, even if metaphorical, should be
pressed so hard. Gerleman finds in the coquettish depreciation of her beauty a reminiscence of
the Cinderella motif.
7
He interprets her failure to guard her own vineyard as a reference to the
enforced labor which prevented her from caring for her beauty and protecting herself from the
sun.
8

A Dialogue Between the Lovers
The Song of Songs 1:72:7*

9
6
Pope, 326.
7
Gerleman, 99.
8
Gerleman, 100101.
*
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1
7
*
W Tell me, you whom my soul loves,

16
17
1
2
3
4
5
*

The phrase (whom my soul loves; cf. 1 Sam 20:17*) is repeated in 3:14*; the idea is
that she loves him with her whole being ( ).
The literal translation of is one who covers ones self (so G ), but the meaning
is not obvious in the context. Commentators have interpreted the covering as a sign of mourning (2 Sam
15:30*), or as the sign of a harlot (Gen 38:1415*). These references are not helpful in explaining the
context of v 7*, and in neither of the instances is the word used. She seems rather to refer to some
kind of covering or disguise she will be forced to use unless she knows where to find him. One can infer
that the disguise will enable her to avoid being identified by his companions, but no reason is given
(perhaps she does not want them to know about the rendezvous?).
Many modern commentators (and NAB, NJV) presuppose a metathesis, reading the word as
(cf. Ezek 13:10*), an Aramaizing form of the Hebrew , wander. Such a meaning is represented in E
it, and , and B uagari. Another meaning, derived from the Arabic delouse (cf. Jer
43:12*), is offered by the NEB, which reads that I may not be left picking lice. Fuerst (171) suggests
that this rather humorous reading may in a vivid way suggest the weariness of being left alone.
(Companions) occurs again in 8:13*, but in neither case are these people specified. In the
context of vv 78* they seem to be the shepherds of v 8*.
where you pasture, where you rest at midday,
lest I become as one who covers herself
near the herds of your companions.
8
*
M If you do not know, O most beautiful of women,
follow the tracks of the flock,
and pasture your kids
near the tents of the shepherds.
9
*
To a mare of Pharaohs chariots
I compare you, my friend:
10
*
Lovely are your cheeks in pendants,

*
Three different terms have been used for the animals in vv 78*: , , and ; both the men
and the woman appear as shepherds, and (pasture) is the catch word binding the lines together.
There is a play on (follow) and (flock).
*

(mare) carries the hireq compaginis (GHB 931), a relic of the older genitive ending. G, E, and B
interpreted it as the first person pronominal suffix (my).
(chariots) is mostly used in the singular to denote a collective plural; hence the plural form
here (how would one mare be joined to several chariots?) has given rise to much discussion. GHB (136j,
note) interprets it as the plural of generalization, a phenomenon that occurs frequently in the Song.
Despite 2 Sam 8:4*, designates chariotry (with horses), rather than horses. Another problem,
pointed out by Pope (336341), is that the evidence for (at least, military?) chariots in antiquity is that
they were drawn by stallions, not mares. Hence he likens the presence of a mare among the stallions of
the cavalry to the episode in the Egyptian campaign against Qadesh: the prince of Qadesh released a
mare in order to upset the Egyptian cavalry, but she was quickly slain by an Egyptian soldier (cf. ANET,
241). Thus Pope interprets the comparison as a reference to the sexual excitement generated by the
woman. However, comparison of the woman to a mare can derive simply from her sex, and the vv 9
11* go on to elaborate the ornaments she wears, not primarily her sex appeal. Commentators generally
note the widespread comparison of a woman to a horse, in a complimentary way, as in Theocritus
Idylls, 18.30 (see also Gerleman, 107).
(my friend, from ) is a special term of endearment for the woman, occurring only in
the Song (1:9*, 15*; 2:2*, 10*, 13*; 4:1*, 7*; 5:2*; 6:4*). friend (male) has a sexual nuance in Hos
3:1*, and so also . The woman calls the man (my friend), parallel to (my lover) in
5:16*.
*

your neck, in beads;
11
*
Pendants of gold we will make for you,
along with silver ornaments.
12
*
W While the king was in his enclosure
13
*
A sachet of myrrh is my lover to me;
between my breasts he lies.
14
*
A cluster of henna is my lover to me,

(lovely) is best understood as a Nipal perfect of (GHG 75x). G and L appear to have read
(how!) before it, but more probably they have interpreted the line as an exclamation.
(pendants) designates something round ( go around), such as a bangle or bracelet
that would be an ornament for the womans face.
(beads) indicates something formed by perforating and then stringing together, such as a
necklace (cf. Syriac and Arabic (h)rz).
*
(ornaments) are literally spots or points, and perhaps designate spangles or beads.
*

Although can mean until (cf. 2:7*, 17*), it means while in v 12* (cf. HELOT 725, II.2).
derives from and indicates something that is round, hence environs, circle, or the
like. G understood it in the sense of resting: ; similarly E bsmkh, and B in accubitu
suo. Thus it is taken to be a couch or divan on which one reclined while eating. The word could indicate a
group of people, such as entourage, but the intimacy of v 13* suggests a private place, an enclosure. If
one understands vv 817* as a unit, the place is further specified in v 16* as a couch. L. Krinetzki (102)
points out the notable alliteration of m, n, and r in v 12*.
(nard) is an aromatic plant of Indian origin, which yields a precious perfume; cf. 4:1314*.
*

(Myrrh) is an aromatic gum resin extracted from a tree, an import from Arabia and India. It was a
popular perfume in the ancient Near East.
(my lover, literally my love) is the womans preferred term (27 times) to designate the
man.
*

in the vineyards of Engedi.
15
*
M Ah, you are beautiful, my friend;
ah, you are beautiful, your eyes are doves.
16
*
W Ah, you are beautiful, my lover, most pleasing!
Indeed our couch is verdant.
17
*
The beams of our house, cedars;
our rafters, cypresses.
2
1
*
I am a flower of Sharon,

The flower of the cypress ( ) or henna shrub yields a strong and pleasant smell; it was cultivated in
Egypt and Palestine.
, if taken literally, means that the man spends the night; but the verb is used in a broad sense
elsewhere (e.g., Job 19:4*; Prov 15:31*). The preposition in can also be translated from. But
there may be a deliberate ambiguity here, in order to suggest that the vineyard represents the woman.
In that case v 14b* would be truly parallel to v 13b*, and not merely a geographical note. Engedi
(literally the fountain of the kid) is a well-known oasis in the Judaean desert on the west bank of the
Dead Sea.
*
has the effect of a strong affirmative: indeed, you (GHB 164a). The repetition is striking, and a
melodious effect is achieved by the alliteration (n, k, y). This verse is repeated in 4:1*, where it leads
into a description of the womans beauty.
*
(most or also) strengthens the affirmation. The woman deliberately picks up the ,
which the man used twice in reference to her in v 15*.
*

M has the plural (our houses), which is probably a plural of generalization (cf. GHB 136j).
Nowhere else do either of them refer to our house (cf. our door, 7:14*[13*]).
The translation follows the Qere, (our rafters) as being better known (cf. also 7:6*[5*])
than the hapax, . The root means run in Syriac and Aramaic.
(cypresses) is the Aramaic form of ; the precise type of cypress cannot be
identified.
*

a lily of the valleys.
2
*
M As a lily among thorns,
so is my friend among women.
3
*
W As an apple tree among the trees of the forest,
4
*
He has brought me to the wine house,

The ancient versions were vague about the identity of (flower): G ; B flos. It may be the
asphodel or the narcissus, but there is no certainty. Cf. Pope (368) and Loretz (13 n. 2) for references to
several studies on this flower.
: The proper name, Sharon, rather than the plain, seems indicated here; the reference
would be to the fertile plain that extended north of Jaffa to Athlit.
*
(lily) seems to be derived ultimately from the Egyptian word for the (blue) lotus or water-lily.
Cf. Pope (367) and Loretz (13 n. 4) for references to studies on this flower.
*

The precise nature of (apple tree; cf. G ; B malus) has not been identified. The root
etymology (, breathe, flow upon) suggests a fragrant fruit; cf. 7:9*[8*].
The literal meaning of (taste) is palate; cf. 5:15*; 7:10*[9*].
*

G, E, and L construed the verb (he has brought me) as an imperative (cf. v 5*), as in 1:4* The
direct address of dialogue is thus preserved. However, the transition to the third person address in M
and B is not infrequent and can be easily understood in view of the third-person statement in v 6*. The
dialogue of vv 13* yields to the womans description of her feelings.
is wine house. This serves as a trysting place (cf. 1:12*, and the association of wine and
love in 1:2*, 4*), but the exact place is difficult to identify; the best solutions are banquet hall (cf. Est
7:8*, , or house of feasting (Eccl 7:2*, ).
A traditional rendering of is his banner. But there is no solid evidence that means
banner, despite the claims of dictionaries. The term often refers to a military unit (Num 2, passim), but
a derived association insignia, emblem or the like is highly tenuous. G and E read an imperative, in
line with their general interpretation of v 4*, with the meaning of set or direct (); ()
and B (ordinavit) read a finite form of the verb . Any translation should be logically coherent with
and his banner over me is love.
5
*
Strengthen me with raisin cakes,
refresh me with apples,
for I am sick with love.
6
*
7
*
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

the preceding . The best philological evidence links with Akkadian daglu, to look. This
understanding, yielding his glance or the like, is reflected by many modern commentators: cf. Eugenio
Zolli, In margine al Cantico dei Cantici, Bib 21 (1940) 273282, especially 273275; Robert Gordis, The
Root in the Song of Songs, JBL 88 (1969) 203204, and Pope (375377, intent).
*

(strengthen) is in the second-person masculine plural, but possibly without any gender
intended (cf. 2:15*, and especially 5:8*); in context it can be considered as an appeal to the Daughters,
who are addressed with masculine gender in v 7*.
The exact meaning of (raisin cakes) is hard to verify. The ancient versions went in
different directions (e.g., B flowers), and offer no help; cf. the discussion in Robert (104105) and
Pope (378380). Jewish tradition interpreted the term in the light of 2 Sam 6:19* to mean a wine jug (cf.
AV flagons). Modern commentators usually understand the word in the sense of (raisin) cakes, a
food of pressed dried grapes. These seem to have a (fertility) cult use in Hos 3:1*, but not in 2 Sam 6:19*
(1 Chr 16:3*).
*
This verse is repeated in 8:3*. As a nominal sentence it can be understood as a wish; then it proposes a
remedy for the love-sickness.
*

Cf. 8:4* and also 5:8*. The adjuration is certainly addressed to the Daughters despite the masculine
pronominal suffix ( ). The use of the masculine for the feminine is frequent in the Song (4:2*; 5:8*;
6:6*, 8*).
(by the gazelles and hinds of the fields) is rendered in G by the
powers and forces of the field. This presupposes a different understanding, but not a different Vorlage.
The mention of the gazelle and hind in the context of love has some support in Prov 5:1819*. But their
appearance in an oath is strange. The best suggestion has been made by Gordis (28): that there is
present a deliberate reluctance to use the divine name. The speaker replaces such customary oaths
as blohei
e
bhth or b
e
l addai by a similarly sounding phrase bi
e
bhth b
e
ay
e
lth hassdeh
by the gazelles or hinds of the field, choosing animals, which symbolize love, for the substitutions.
until it be ready!
Interpretation
This section is separate from 1:6*, where the woman addressed the Daughters. Now she speaks
directly to the man (whom my soul loves, v 7*), and the following lines of admiration form a
dialogue in direct address (vv 911*, 1214*, 1517*; 2:13*). The dialogue winds down with

For the adjuration (do not arouse ) with , see GHB 165a, d. The verbs derive from the same
root (), and have the meaning of exciting or energizing (cf. Cant 4:16*, where the north wind is told
to arise). The verb does not mean to disturb, although it can be used in the context of sleep from
which one is awakened (Job 14:12*). Sleep is not indicated in vv 67*. Neither is there any indication of
a prohibition to disturb the process of lovemaking.
(with the definite article) is to be taken as the abstract noun; many translations prefer
loved one, interpreting the abstract for the concrete (AV, NEB), but this is unnecessary. Love
(personified) is the subject of the verb be ready.
*
7
*
9
10
11
*
12
13
14
*
the change to the third person for the man in 2:46*, and the unit ends, as in 1:6*, with an
address to the Daughters.
There seems to be a deliberate pattern of interlocking repetitions in 2:17*: lily, vv 12*;
like so, vv 23*; apple, vv 3*, 5*; love, vv 4*, 7*.

15
16
17
*
1
2
3
*
4
5
6
*
1
2
3
4
5
6
The adjuration to the Daughters has the appearance of a refrain (2:67*; 8:34*: cf. 5:8*).
Except for the snatch of conversation in 1:56* and the dialogue in 5:26:3*, it is always at the
end of a section that the woman addresses the Daughters.

7
until it is ready!
*
1
2
*
2
3
*
6
7
until it is ready!
*
3
4
*
8
*
7* The question spoken by the woman is at first sight clear: She wants to know her lovers
whereabouts at noon time (the time of rest and relaxation). Apparently her purpose is to set up a
rendezvous. She adds, with a certain air of threat and tease, that she must not become like one

2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
1
covering or disguising herself near the flocks of his companions.
1
The implication is that the
covering would be necessary, but undesirable in her eyes. The reason for her covering is not
clear; perhaps it is to avoid identification by the companions. Horst is correct in characterizing
the genre of vv 78* as a teasing conversation.
2
Her question is nonetheless serious, in that the
issue of the lovers presence/absence is a frequent theme in the Song. The tenderness of her
question is underlined by the phrase whom my soul loves (cf. 3:14*).
8* Since the question of the woman was clearly directed to the man, the reply should be
attributed to him and not to the companions, the Daughters of Jerusalem, a chorus, or the poet
himself.
3
His reply is in the same teasing vein as her question. He tells her to go to the very place

1
See the Notes, p. 131 for the discussion of the difficult term y.
*
7
8
2
Horst, Formen, 183.
*
1
2
3
4
*
8
3
These latter positions are represented respectively by Gordis (47; cf. also NEB); Bea (28) and Loretz (8);
L. Krinetzki (94) and Robert (79); and Gerleman (102).
that she held out as a danger: the vicinity of the shepherds (the companions of v 7*). He does
not refuse her question; he teases her by telling her where to pasture her kids. This is the only
reference to the woman as a shepherdess. Why she is so represented is not clear (poetic
imagination?). Loretz takes up the suggestion of Haupt that the kids are symbols of love (Gen
38:17*; Judg 15:1*; Tob 2:13*), but they have no such function in v 8*. Verses 78* end with
the designation of a place, suggesting that companions and shepherds are identical.
4

911* These lines are spoken by the man in admiration of his beloveds beauty. Horst
designates the genre as a song of admiration.
5
In contrast to the waf, which emphasizes the
physical beauty of successive parts of the body, this song focuses upon her adornment.
9* The point of the comparison in v 9* is both the beauty and the finery with which the horses
of Egyptian chariotry were adorned, as illustrated by the decoration of the chariot horses driven

Loretz Oswald Loretz, Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische Liebeslied.
Untersuchungen zur Stichometrie und Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45. Psalms (AOAT
14/1; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; and Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971).
*
17
He answered, I will send you a kid from the flock. And she said, Only if you give me a pledge, until
you send it.
*
1
After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He
said, I want to go into my wifes room. But her father would not allow him to go in.
Judges 15:1 (NRSV)
*
13
When she returned to me, the goat began to bleat. So I called her and said, Where did you get this
goat? It is surely not stolen, is it? Return it to the owners; for we have no right to eat anything stolen.
Tobit 2:13 (NRSV)
4
Note the preposition al, by, in both instances.
5
Horst, Formen, 176.
*
9
by Tut-ankh-Amon.
6
Gerleman and other commentators cite examples from Egyptian love
poems in which the man is compared to a horse,
7
but the comparison is not relevant since it
refers to the speed with which he comes to his beloved.
8

10* As indicated in the Notes, the specific nature of the ornaments cannot be determined. It is
clear that they adorn her face and neck, and that they enhance her beauty. One may derive some
notion of this ornamentation from the Nimrud ivory carving of a womans head and from the
ivory plaque from Ugarit in which a woman seems to offer a jar of perfume (cf. Cant 1:3*;
3:10*) to her consort.
9

11* The we is explained as a plural of majesty by Wrthwein, or as a literary fiction
(anonymous admirers, with whom the poet identifies himself) by Gerleman.
10
It is possible
that the plural is suggested by the intimacy of the couple: she is to be the recipient of his gifts.
Despite the plural, it is certain that the man speaks these lines, as indicated by his favorite term
of endearment (rayt, my friend).
1214* These verses are spoken by the woman. The transition to the third person address is
surprising but not unusual (cf. 2:4*). Krinetzki identifies the genre as a table-song, that

6
ANEP, 60 (no. 190); cf. Keel, 60, 6263, 66.
7
Gerleman, 106107.
8
See Simpson, Literature, 321322 (Chester Beatty Love Songs). For a different interpretation of v 9*,
see the Notes, p. 131.
*
10
*
10
9
ANEP, 343 (no. 782) and 351 (no. 818) respectively.
*
11
10
Wrthwein, 42; Gerleman, 108.
*
4
develops into an expression of joy over the presence of the man.
11
But it can also be seen as a
song of admiration describing the fragrance of his presence, and replying to the mans words in
vv 911*. Once again the man is portrayed by literary fiction as a king (cf. 1:4*).
12* Whatever be the precise meaning of in his enclosure, the woman is speaking of an
intimate scene with her lover (the king). Fragrance is once again the theme (cf. 1:3*); the
reference to precious and sweet perfumes is in character with the mood and language of the
Song. The characters affect each other by means of fragrance: if she is nard (v 12*), he is myrrh
and henna (v 13*). It is over-precise to say that the nard is a sign of her devotion.
12
Rather, the
perfumes symbolize the pleasure which their mutual presence brings to them. While the nard
refers to her personal toilette, it stands implicitly for herself. In 4:13* he acclaims her as a garden
with exotic plants, nard among them; hence she is a source of delights.
1314* in these lines the woman celebrates the intimacy and charm of the presence of the
beloved to her, using the symbols of myrrh and henna. The man thus forms a counterpoint to
herself (the nard of v 12*). The similarity between vv 13a* and 14a* serves to underscore the

11
L. Krinetzki, 104.
*
12
*
13
12
So Wrthwein, 43.
*
13
*
13
14
*
apparent dissimilarity in vv 13b* and 14b*. After the personal and intimate note in v 13b* (he
rests between her breasts), it is odd to read of the vineyards of Engedi as the source of the henna.
One wonders if there is not an implicit reference to the woman as a vineyard.
13
Henna could very
well have grown in the oasis of Engedi, though the Song has a preference for exotic place names
(Engedi, Heshbon, Baal-hamon, etc.).
15* My friend (cf. 1:9*) is a clear indication that the verse is spoken by the man; he will
repeat the verse in 4:1*. The admiratory tone of vv 1214* is continued by him in what becomes
a dialogue of mutual admiration. (1:152:3*). Doves is a metaphor, not a simile. To explain it,
Gerleman has recourse to the conventional portraits done by the Egyptians in which the
representation of the human eye suggests those of a bird.
14
Even if this usage is due to Egyptian
influencewhich is questionablethe point of the compliment is not evident.

14
13
See above, pp. 7879. cf. 1:5*.
*
15
*
1
*
15
16
17
1
2
3
14
Gerleman, 114; cf. Keel, 7275.
16* The woman returns the compliment to the man, and expands it with a reference to their
trysting place. The description (bed in bloom, walls of cedar and cypress) differs from the
enclosure mentioned in v 12*. The king fiction has yielded to the rustic shepherd fiction; the
room is now a leafy couch. The picture, which may be more evocative than locative, is in line
with the rustic imagery used throughout the Song. Here again, it is better not to be over-precise,
as Rudolph is when he comments that the (bridal) bed is green, because love is always fresh and
young, and because from it the future of the family will grow.
15
It is preferable to let the
terms echo simply the atmosphere of intimacy.
2:1* When the woman describes herself as a flower, etc., she is not laying claim to any
extraordinary beauty. There must have been many such flowers in the Sharon plain. She is one
among many, remarks Gerleman, who detects a modest and coquettish tone in this verse.
16

2* The man utilizes her own comparison, only in order to heighten it: a lily among thorns.
There will be more statements about her uniqueness (6:810*).

*
16
Rudolph Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth, Das Hohe Lied, Die Klogelieder (KAT 17/13; Gtersloh:
Gtersloher Verlagshaus [Gerd Mohn], 1962).
15
Rudolph, 128.
*
1
16
Gerleman, 116.
*
2
*
8
9
10
banners?
3* She returns his compliment with a similar comparison in his favor. Although the precise
meaning of tappa (apple tree) is uncertain, it offers shade and fruit.
17
The woman is able to
expand her compliment by referring to her delight in his presence and loving attention. The
metaphors of the shadow and fruit melt into the reality of their relationship, symbolizing the
delights of love; cf. v 5*. In a similar way she is a vineyard (1:5*), a date-palm (7:8*), and a
garden (4:1216*).
4* The transition from second to third person address has already begun in the dialogue of vv
23*. Such changes have been noted already; cf. 1:4*, 12*. But now the mood of the woman

*
3
17
See Notes above, p. 132.
*
5
*
7
*
12
13
14
spices
15
16
*
becomes heavier, and her words do not appear to be directly addressed to the man. She turns her
attention more to the subjective experience of love. The atmosphere is similar to 1:12*, and the
place may be the same or at least similar (enclosure, wine house). The choice of such
trysting places is suggested by the natural and effective symbolism of wine (cf. 1:2*; 4:10*;
7:10*).
Although banner is a doubtful translation of degel, the term may reflect the royal dignity
associated with the man; he would then be presented as a king who has won the beloved. More
important is the reflective nature in which love (ahb) is disclosed in the context. It is the
central topic of v 7*, where the Daughters are adjured not to arouse love. The same kind of
reflection upon love (its strength) is found in the aphorism of 8:6*. This sets the stage for the
womans avowal of love-sickness in the following verse.
5* It is not clear to whom the request (imperative, second person masculine plural) is
addressed. In context it can be regarded as directed to the Daughters (v 7*), just as in 5:8* where
the woman in an explicit adjuration to the Daughters again proclaims her love-sickness.
18

2
3
*
9
*
7
until it is ready!
*
6
18

>The seventh stanza of the Songs of Extreme Happiness in the Chester Beatty Love Songs expressly
develops the theme of love-sickness (Simpson, Literature, 320321):
Seven days have passed, and Ive not seen my lady love;
The need for succor is explicitly stated: the womans love has made her ill (expressed with
delicacy and strength in B, amore langueo). Obviously raisin cakes and apples can have a
nourishing effect, but no food can provide a remedy. Hence these two foods must have a
particular nuance, but it is difficult to capture this. Many commentators claim that they are
symbolic of love,
19
or are to be associated with a love-spell.
20
But the bearing of the evidence for

a sickness has shot through me.
I have become sluggish
I have forgotten my own body.
If the best surgeons come to me,
my heart will not be comforted with their remedies.
And the prescription sellers, theres no help through them;
my sickness will not be cut out.
Telling me shes come is what will bring me back to life.
Its only her name which will raise me up.
Its the coming and going of her letters
which will bring my heart to life.
To me the lady love is more remedial than any potion;
shes better than the whole Compendium.
My only salvation is her coming inside.
Seeing her, then Im well.
When she opens her eyes my body is young,
when she speaks Ill grow strong,
when I embrace her she drives off evil from me.
But now the days of her absence amount to Seven.
Here, in contrast to the Song, it is the man who is love-sick, not the woman.
B Vulgate version
19
So, e.g., Wrthwein, 44; and Rudolph, 131.
these associations on the text of the Song is quite uneven. We know that cakes (kawwnm)
were used in connection with the worship of Ishtar (cf. Jer 7:18*; 44:19*), but we do not know
their precise role. It makes little sense for the woman to ask for an aphrodisiac here. Rather, the
sense of the text is that she asks for food to cure her love-sickness. But it can be cured only by
love, as paradoxical as that may be. The precise nuance of the apples and raisin cakes escapes us,
but they seem to be exotic foods, fitting for a winehouse (v 4*). The choice of apples may be
due to the comparison of the man to a tappa in v 3*.
6* It makes little difference whether the lover is actually present or absent; the verse can be
construed as a wish or as a simple fantasy. It expresses the intention stated in 2:3*: in his
shadow I desire to remain. The physical presence of the man is not suggested by the next verse
in which she (not the man) somewhat abruptly admonishes the Daughters. The juxtaposition of
this verse with 2:7* in 8:34* suggests that these two verses are intended as a unity, perhaps a
refrain. In 8:34* the presence of the man is secured by the womans address to him in 8:2*.

20
So Ringgren (in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied, Klagelieder, Das Buck Esther:
bersetzt und erklrt [ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958] 11); cf. Pope (380), who
suggests aphrodisiacs.
*
18
The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the
queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.
*
19
And the women said, Indeed we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out
libations to her; do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out
libations to her without our husbands being involved?
*
6
*
2
7* This verse is practically repeated in 8:4*, but with the omission of the gazelles and hinds
of the field. It seems to close the dialogue which began back in 1:7*. The woman begins to
relate a new episode in 2:8*.
The reference to the gazelles and hinds seems to be an imitation of an invocation of God.
21

However, it is not without associations within the poem. Gazelles are mentioned in 2:8*, 17*
(resemblance of the man); 4:5* (resemblance of the womans breasts) and in 8:14* (echo of
2:17*). The word hind is used of a wife in Prov 5:19*. Also, the relationship between
gazelle and beauty as meanings of b should be remembered.

*
4
*
8
21
So Gordis, 28; see the Notes, above p. 133.
*
17
cleft mountains.
*
5
*
14
*
19
by her love.
The womans admonition prohibits (artificial) stimulation of love. Love is personified as a
power, as in 8:6*. The love about which she is speaking is the mutual love featured in the
dialogue. Love has its own laws and is not to be achieved artificially. Only when it is truly
present (until it be ready) can the participants enjoy it. Other interpretations have been
proposed: the union of the lovers is not to be disturbed until they have had enough;
22
the
adjuration is supposedly spoken by the man, who admonishes the Daughters not to awaken the
woman.
23

A Reminiscence Concerning the Lovers Visit
8
*
W Hark, my lover!

22
Rudolph, 131.
23
So NEB; L. Krinetzki, 119; and others.
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
14
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
*

Hark is literally the voice of; for this usage of , cf. GHB 162e.
See, he comes:
Springing over the mountains,
leaping over the hills.
9
*
My lover is like a gazelle,
or a young stag.
See, he stands behind our wall,
looking through windows,
peering through lattices.
10
*
My lover responded to me:
(M) Arise, my friend,
11
*
See, the winter is past,
the rains are over, gone.
12
*
The blossoms appear in the land,

(See) is literally this one, or there. Cf. GHB 143a for the deictic character of ; the
idiom is repeated in v 9. Before the word gazelle is even mentioned the man is implicitly so described
by the words (springing) and (leaping). Note the parallelism in the structure of vv 8
9*, expressed by participles and prepositions.
*

(peering) is the Hipil participle of , which normally means blossom. As the parallelism
and context demand, the ancient versions understood it in the general sense of look: G ,
peep; E mrkn, bow (head); B prospiciens, gaze upon. Such a meaning appears also in the Talmud
(b. Yoma 67a).
(lattices) is hapax; along with (windows) this is a plural of generalization (cf.
in 1:17*).

2
means gazelle, and
1
means beauty; there seems to be a deliberate play on the word.
*

Arise and come is repeated as an inclusio at the end of the mans invitation in v 13b.
The noun (wall) is a hapax, and perhaps an Aramaism (cf. in Dan 5:5*). The our need
not refer to the family of the woman; it can be understood in a mutual sense, as in 1:1617* and 2:12*.
*
( Qere) is a hapax and an Aramaism (cf. Wagner, Aramaismen, 79); it stands here for the
winter rains. The asyndetic (over and gone) is stylistically effective.
the time for pruning has arrived;
The song of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
13
*
The fig tree yields its figs;
the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my friend,
14
*
My dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the recesses of the cliff,
Let me see your face
and hear your voice,
For your voice is pleasant
and your face lovely.
15
*
W Catch us the foxes,
the little foxes
that damage the vineyards,
when our vineyards are in bloom.
16
*
My lover is mine

*
, a hapax, can be associated with two different roots:
2
cut;
1
sing. Hence
commentators vary between pruning (the vine) and song. Lemaire argues that the term refers to the
time of vintage, grapegathering: Andr Lemaire, Zmr dans la tablette de Gezer et le Cantique des
Cantiques, VT 25 (1975) 1526. Pope (395) points to Isa 18:5* for the association of the blossoming of
the vine and pruning.
*

has to do with embalming in Gen 50:2*, 6*; if it means change color, ripen, it can be
understood in the present context.
(its figs) is a hapax, but the word occurs in Aramaic and Arabic, and designates the first,
unripe fruit.
*
(your face) is literally your appearance. Note the ab/ba parallelism in v 14*, preserved in
the translation (face/voice).
*
Foxes foxes is an example of repetitive parallelism of the single-word type (Albright, Archaic
Survivals, 3). The form (catch) is plural imperative masculine, and the line seems to be spoken
by a group (us is the indirect object).
*
This verse is repeated, with a slight variation in order, in 6:3*; cf. 7:11*. It is the refrain of mutual
belonging (Feuillet, 2829). (browses) is understood here intransitively, in the sense of to
feed oneself on, rather than transitively, in the sense of pasture (a flock). Both interpretations are
possible.
and I am his
who browses among the lilies.
17
*
Turn, my lover;
upon the mountains of Bether.
Interpretation
Tournay has pointed out a striking inclusio for 2:817*.
1
The unit begins with mountains,
gazelle, stag, and it ends in chiastic fashion with gazelle, stag, and mountains.
The abruptness, as well as the vividness, of this passage is striking. Nothing leads up to it (cf.
the adjuration in 2:7*), and the story of the womans search in 3:15* is clearly a separate

*

(until) was rendered when in 1:12*, which sense is preferred here by Rudolph (136) to
indicate the time when the man is to return from pasturing his flock (v 16*).
The breathing of the day and the fleeing of the shadows have been interpreted in diametrically
opposing ways: the end of the day or the end of night. In one case the words are understood to mean
the afternoon breeze (Gen 3:8*), and the lengthening of shadows, as night approaches. In the other, the
reference would be to the morning wind, and the disappearance of darkness, as day dawns.
is ambiguous; it could mean also return or turn aside. Where the passage is almost repeated
in 8:14*, (flee) is used. The context of the invitation suggests she means that he is to come to
her, but it is not necessary to infer that he has been absent.
Whereas in 2:9* the woman merely stated the comparison, now she urges him to be like a gazelle or
stag; in 8:14* the imperative also occurs.
Bether as a proper name is otherwise unknown; the identification with Bittir, southwest of
Jerusalem, is quite uncertain. The etymology of suggests mountains of separation. Another
possibility is to understand in the light of 8:14*, where (spices) occurs in its place. The
mountains of Bether seem to be a symbol of the woman herself.
1
Raymond Jacques Tournay, Abraham et le Cantique des Cantiques, VT 25 (1971) 544550, esp. 550 n.
22.
*
1
2
incident. The whole unit can be understood as a reminiscence; the woman recounts the visit of
her lover and quotes his invitation to her (vv 813*, with an inclusio for vv 1013*). Following
upon this soliloquy is a conversation (vv 1415*), initiated by the man. In context, this seems to

3
4
5
until it is ready!
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
*
10
11
12
heard in our land.
13
*
be a continuation of the reminiscence she began in v 8*. Similarly, one may associate with the
reminiscence the womans proclamation of their mutual fidelity, and her invitation to her
beloved (vv 1617*), who is present to her at least in the memory of the visit which she is
evoking.
Horst sees that 2:89* marks the beginning of a description of experience.
2
He also
recognizes that the spring song is encased in an invitation that expresses yearning (2:1013*).
8* The woman speaks these lines which describe the mans haste to reach her. She is in her
house, presumably that of her parents (our, v 9*). Rudolph suggests that the time is early
morning, because otherwise the invitation to enjoy the change in nature would be without
purpose; it is certainly daytime.
3
Her description of his approach anticipates her description of
him as a gazelle in v 9*. The style is vivid; one feels the tension of the speaker as well as the
desire of the man whose arrival and feverish activity are further described in the next verse.

14
15
*
16
17
cleft mountains.
*
8
9
2
Horst, Formen, 184.
*
9
3
Rudolph, 133.
9* It is misleading to speak of a peeping Tom episode in v 9*, or to say the bride is
preparing her toilet and keeping her lover waiting outside.
4
The whole episode seems quite
natural; note the comparison that the woman uses (like a gazelle) and her awareness of his
eager inquiry to see if she is there.
5
The theme of presence/absence of the beloved is illustrated in
this passage in a slightly different manner than, say, in 3:15*.
10* Arise and come is repeated in v 13b, ending the description of Spring, and thus
forming an inclusio as well as chiastic structure (ab/ba).
1113* The Song of the Spring in these verses has been called the most beautiful song to
nature in the Old Testament.
6
Only a few typical incidents of Spring are singled out, but they

4
Pope, 392.
5

The comparison of the man to a gazelle is found also in Egyptian love poetry (Simpson, Literature, 322):
Please come quick to the lady love
like a gazelle
running in the desert.
Here the speaker seems to be the poet, not the woman, and he elaborates on the pursuit of the
wounded gazelle by the hunters. However, the gazelle is escaping speedily; so also the man hastens to
the woman, as the concluding lines show:
Before you have kissed my hand four times,
you shall have reached her hideaway
as you chase the lady love.
Cf. Keel, 9496.
*
10
*
11
12
heard in our land.
13
have great evocative power. The passage of winter is synonymous with the ending of the rainy
season. A certain heightening effect characterizes the mans description: blossoms, pruning, and
song of the birds, and then the actual budding of figs and vines.
1415* Although these verses include the enigmatic reference to the little foxes (v 15*),
they can be understood as a request and a reply. The larger issue is whether they are independent
of the context. In vv 813* the woman occupied a home with lattices; now she is in an
inaccessible rocky crevice. However, one need not be rigid about unity of place here. The
inaccessibility of the beloved is a recognized topos of love poetry. Hence these words are to be
understood as a new theme introduced by the man when he finishes his song about the Spring.
14* The man uses the endearing term dove again in 5:2*, 6:9*; it is, of course, a frequent
term for the female in many literatures and cultures. Pope remarks appropriately, Doves make
their nests in cliff-side clefts and caves; when frightened they are reluctant to emerge.
7
This
summons of the man to the woman pictures her as inaccessible; in the context she is within the
house. The theme of the inaccessibility of the beloved is universal; hence the desire expressed by
the man to see and hear her is perfectly natural. Even if one were to judge vv 1415* as a
separate poem, they fit into the context neatly enough. His request (not the chiastic structure)
seems to be echoed in 8:14*.
15* This verse has always been recognized as enigmatic. Though a reply by the woman to the
mans request, it is addressed to a plural group (the speaker refers to us and to our
vineyards). The meaning is obscure. One can understand the verse as an answer to his request to

6
Rudolph, 134.
*
14
*
2
*
9
7
Pope, 400.
hear her voice; she now gives forth a ditty or song of some kind (in which the second person
plural address is retained). But it is not clear what the threat of the foxes to the vineyards has to
do with their situation. Would any snatch of words fit here, since she only intends to satisfy his
request? Or must one look for pertinence in what she says? It may be possible to see some
relevance if this is interpreted as a quotation by the woman. It can be seen as a saucy reply to the
lover. He had just compared her to someone who is inaccessible in rocks and crevices. Let him
now know that she (the vineyard; cf. 1:6*) is not as inaccessible as all that. There are always the
little foxes who devastate the vineyards, young swain who lay siege to young women. In this
view, then, the exchange in vv 1415* can be classified as a tease. The original meaning of the
verse would be this: the young women warn of the danger of the devastation of the vineyards
(themselves), for the little foxes (young men) are on the prowl. But they are in fact practically
inviting them by saying that our vineyards are in bloom! This little ditty is then employed by
the woman in reply to v 14*.
16* This verse is echoed in 6:3* and partially in 7:11*. Along with v 17*, it appears to bring to
an end the episode the woman began to relate in 2:8*: the two lovers belong to each other.
The lover is described as one who browses among the lilies (also in 6:3*). The meaning is
not clear. As indicated in the Notes, there is an ambiguity in the word browse (rh). The
translation understands him to be feeding on the lilies, which presumably are a symbol for the
woman herself (2:1*). However, Rudolph takes this to be merely a sign of Spring, as the man
pastures his flock.
8
The similar phrase in 4:5* belongs to the same world of symbolism, but does
not shed light on v 16*; in 5:13* the mans lips are described as lilies, but the term should not be
pressed in the context of v 16*. Because the phrase seems so unruly, as the contrast between

*
16
*
3
*
10
8
Rudolph, 136.
*
13
2:16* and 4:5* shows, commentators are tempted to see poetic fantasy at work here. Krinetzki
comments that the poet likes such images just as he likes rare words in order to give thereby a
peculiarly exotic character to his poetry. The artistic charm and attractiveness bring out all the
more effectively the reality behind these images. What is not present in everyday life, what one
can only dream ofthis is to be found in a higher way in the realm of love!
9
Gerleman likewise
refuses to give a symbolic meaning to the lilies: Among the lilies is not intended to
characterize or individualize. Rather it serves as a formula for mere decoration and creation of
atmosphere; it is an arabesque, a playful fiction of a poet who considers the life of a shepherd to
be simply unreal.
10
While there is a certain truth in these views, it should not be exaggerated. In
the case of v 16*, it seems reasonable (cf. 2:1*) to refer the lilies to the womans person.
17* As indicated in the Notes, the expressions about day and shadows could mean all night or
all day. In this closing invitation the woman takes up the image of the gazelle (v 9*). Whereas he
was initially presented as a gazelle racing across the mountains to her (vv 89*), he is now to be
a gazelle upon the Bether mountains, which seem to be a symbol of her own person.
11
There is
therefore a subtlety and poetic heightening in the inclusio; the comparison to the running of the
gazelle on the mountains has now become a comparison to possession of her own person. Since
there is no sign that the lover is absent, one should not regard v 17* as an appeal to one who has
departed; he is present at least in spirit. The deliberate reprise of the symbols and phrases of vv
89* suggests that v 17* is her welcome to the visit which she began to relate in v 8*.
Loss and Discovery
3
1
*
W Upon my bed at night

9
L. Krinetzki, 138. For artistic representations, see Keel, 106111.
10
Gerleman, 127128.
11
Cf. the Notes, above p. 139. On Bether, cf. Sebastin Bartina, Los montes de Bter (Cant 2, 17),
EstBib 31 (1972) 435444. Bartinas solution of 2:73:1* may not be convincing, but the discussion of
the problems, and the survey of opinions, are helpful.
*

(upon my bed) can be compared to (on their beds) in Mic 2:1*, which
describes how the wicked make their plans early oneven in bed. The phrase then merely designates
where the woman is. It does not necessarily indicate a dream (as many commentators claim); the
parallel usage in Dan 2:2829*; 4:2*; etc. is in a context in which dreams and visions are explicitly
mentioned. The situation is left vague, perhaps deliberately (as in 5:1*), so that one cannot be sure if
this is a dream, a poetic idealization, or reality.
The plural (in the nights) has a singular meaning, such as during the night (watches); cf.
GHB 136b.
I sought him whom my soul loves,
2
*
I will rise and make the rounds of the city;
in the streets and crossings
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
3
*
Him whom my soul loveshave you seen him?
4
*
when I found him whom my soul loves.
until I brought him to the house of my mother,

A typical G expansion occurs after v 1b* with the addition of I called him, but he did not answer
me from 5:6*. Verse 1b* should not be deleted. It enunciates the theme of the search which dominates
this section. Its function in 5:6* is different from that which it has in v 2*; here it anticipates the results
of vv 13*.
*

As she develops the episode, the woman quotes in v 2a* the words that she proclaimed in her distress,
giving vivid expression to her resolve to roam through the city to find him. L. Krinetzki (143144)
appropriately notes the intensive nuance (Polel form) in her making the rounds, in contrast to the
simple Qal form which describes the activity of the guardians in v 3*.
The three cohortative forms of the verbs can be understood as a simple resolution of will, or one
can recognize purpose in and . In any case, v 2b* states the failure of her search; she
is forced to have recourse to the guardians (v 3*).
*

There is an ironic play on (found, to be understood here as came upon); the woman is unable
to find her lover, but the guardians of the city find her.
She addresses a question to the watchmen (another vivid trait) couched in terms of her feelings
(whom my soul loves), rather than in terms of any helpful sign of identification.
The repetition from v 2* ( ) heightens the poetic effect. The quotation in v 2* (I will rise
) is matched by the quotation of the question which she puts directly to the watchmen.
*
The propensity of the poet to repetition (to the house , to the room ) is obvious throughout the
Song (e.g., cf. 3:11*; 8:5*). The house of the mother is mentioned again in 8:2*, and the situation is not
dissimilar; she meets him in public and leads him to the mothers home.
5
*
until it be ready!
Interpretation
These verses are to be taken as a unit, because they are clearly separate from what precedes (a
reminiscence about a past visit) and from what follows (a description of a procession). The lines
are certainly spoken by the woman, and the repetition of the adjuration to the Daughters (cf.
2:7*) makes it appear that these women are present to the speaker, at least in spirit and
imagination.
The woman evokes an extraordinary scene in vivid language. The fourfold repetition of
whom my soul loves (cf. 1:7*), and the repeated emphasis on the theme of seeking/finding
bind these verses together. Twice she quotes herself directly: to express her own thoughts and
resolution (v 2*) and to ask a question of the watchmen (v 3*). The rhythm and sound of the

*

The adjuration to the Daughters is repeated from 2:7*, where it also ends a unit. The way in which it is
repeated here would seem to preclude the possibility that the verse is to be ascribed to the man.
Horst (Formen, 185) describes the genre of this unit as a description of an experience: the
woman describes her anguished but successful search for the man in vv 14*, and closes with an
adjuration to the Daughters of Jerusalem. Many commentators (L. Krinetzki [141], Wrthwein [48],
Rudolph [155156] and Lys [139], among the more recent) have interpreted the search as a dream. This
approach is motivated mainly by the bizarre events: there would have been, supposedly, no freedom for
a woman to roam the streets at night; the watchmen could not be presumed to know her lover; the
details of the discovery are simply omitted. Moreover, the whole unit is paralleled by the events in 5:2
8*, which are introduced by the statement that the woman is sleeping. However, it may be too much to
insist that this is a dream. It is more like daydreaming than a dream, the fantasy of one who yearns to
be with an absent lover. Psychologically, this may be only a slight degree removed from the expression
of the unconscious in dream. The description internalizes an adventure, a quest, which is always going
on within the woman when she is apart from the man. In any case, one is dealing with a literary topos:
the search for and discovery of the beloved.
*
2
*
3
lines is very attractive: the repetition of q/k, b, and s in v 1*; the repetition of sbb (make the
rounds) for the woman and the watchmen (with the gracious alliteration of hamrm
hassbbm in v 3*).
1

1* The woman is on her bed. Certainly, this is not as explicit as the parallel passage, 5:2*,
where she is said to be asleep. Hence whether this is a dream or not remains open. Verse 1a*
does not mean that she looked for him in bed. Rather, she is in bed, and yearns for his
presencethis is expressed by the first of the four occurrences of bq in this unit.
2* This verse presents concretely her resolve to extend the search into the highways and
byways of the city. The negative results are quickly summed up by the repetition without any
details. There is no need to specify the unnamed city, but it is sizable, in view of the watchmen
who patrol it.
3* Almost every verse takes up a word or phrase from the preceding; here the description of
the watchmen echoes the phrase in the womans resolve (v 2*). Little is known about such
guardians, and the poet merely sets down the womans despairing question to them (cf. the
puzzling difference in 5:7*, where they beat and strip her).
4* The description moves quickly to her discovery of the man, and her firm custody of him
until she has brought him to her mothers house. The mention of the maternal home is
emphasized by the parallel phrases at the end of the verse, a style characteristic of the song (cf.
4:8*). It is a strange fact that the mother is so frequently referred to in the work: 1:6*; 3:4*; 6:9*;

*
1
1
For details, see especially L. Krinetzki, 142143.
*
7
*
4
*
8
8:2*, 5*. In 8:2* the house of the mother again plays a role as a haven to which the woman can
bring the man. The mother is mentioned also in the Egyptian love poetry, but it is not clear why
her role is so prominent.
2

5* The appearance of the adjuration (2:7*; cf. 8:4*) to the Daughters is sudden. In 2:7* and
8:4* it is paired with the formula of embrace (2:6*; 8:3*); here it simply follows upon the story
of the loss and discovery. However, one can say that her possession of him (and I did not let
him go, v 4*) is in harmony with the mention of the embrace that normally appears before the
adjuration. Moreover, the contexts of 3:5* and 8:4* are similar in that the adjuration follows
upon the mention of finding (8:1*) and bringing the lover to the maternal home (8:2*). It seems
certain (contrary to NEB) that the words are to be attributed to the woman in 3:5*, as well as in
2:7* and 8:4*. Even Wrthwein, who attributes 2:7* to the companions of the woman, is forced
to say that in 3:5* she quotes the adjuration formula.
3

*
5
2
Simpson, Literature, 317, 320 (Chester Beatty Love Songs).
*
5
until it is ready!
*
3
*
1
NEB The New English Bible (1970)
3
Wrthwein, 48.
In every instance the meaning of the adjuration to the Daughters remains the same, and
translation must be consistent. I prefer the abstract meaning stir up love (ahb) rather than
the concrete. In every instance the woman speaks of the man in the third person (2:6*; 3:4*;
8:3*) before delivering the adjuration. In the context of 3:15*, the adjuration appears to be a
lesson which the woman derives from her experience. She has just described her own anguish
over the absence of the beloved, followed by her possession of him. Now she tells the Daughters
that love is not to be trifled with; its arousal drives one into unanticipated and even unknown
experiences. The adjuration is a refrain that deliberately ends a scene in three instances, but there
is no evidence that it was a traditional literary conclusion of a rendezvous description.
4
Finally,
the adjuration to the Daughters does not demand their physical presence; they could be merely a
foil for the woman. Only when they are clearly represented as speaking (as in 5:9*; 6:1*) is their
physical presence necessary.
Solomons Procession

4
Gerleman, 133.
*
9
*
1
*
6
7
8
night.
9
10
6
*
(?) What is this coming up from the desert,
like a column of smoke?

11
*

is literally who is this? The feminine can be construed as neuter, and can be
translated as what? (GHB 142; 148b). This leaves open the identity of the person or thing being
hailed by the speaker(s). The identical question occurs again in 8:5a*, where the feminine participle
( ) indicates that the woman is meant, although no answer is given. A similar question in 6:10*
is not quite analogous to 3:6* since it is a quotation of what the queens and concubines say about the
woman, and terminates the mans praise of her which began in 6:2* (an inclusion). Again, no answer is
given, but the context makes it clear that the woman is meant. This kind of question can receive an
answer, as in Isa 63:1*, or remain without one, as in Isa 60:8*, and Cant 6:10*; 8:5*. The question in
itself, from a form-critical point of view, can be considered as a cry of a watchman on the wall to the
guards, or also as a challenge to an approaching party to offer some sign of identification. This would
normally call for an answer. In the case of 3:67* it seems clear that the clause of v 7* is an explicit
answer.
is another plural of generalization (GHB 136j); the noun occurs elsewhere only in Joel 3:3
[2:20]*, where it is also joined to (smoke). Comparison with Judg 20:40* shows that column of
smoke is meant here.
(perfumed) is the Pual feminine participle of , which means in the intensive form
to send up a sacrifice (incense or animal) in smoke. Hence the participle here would mean censed or
smoked, therefore perfumed, and refers back to . The vocalization of M should be retained,
against B and the Targum which understood the in as the preposition from.
(frankincense) receives its name from the white ( ) color of the powdered gum resin
that was imported from Arabia.
The phrase (from all kinds of exotic powders) is literally from all kinds of
powder of a merchant. For the construction and meaning of (from all), cf. GHB 133e, 139h.
The meaning powder for the hapax is secured by its masculine form ( ), which is used with
(dust) in Deut 28:26*; cf. also Exod 9:9*; Ezek 26:10*.
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
from all kinds of exotic powders?
7
*
This is Solomons litter:
8
*
trained for war;
9
*
King Solomon made himself
a carriage from Lebanon wood.
10
*
Its columns he made of silver,

*
The word translated by litter ( , with the pronominal suffix having an articular and emphatic
function; cf. GHB 131 m,n) is the normal term for a bed; in this instance it is portable (cf. 1 Sam
19:15*) as the identification with carriage (v 9*) also indicates.
*
Solomons warriors are described literally as held (fast) ( ) by the sword; the nuance is that they
are skilled, as the use of this root in Akkadian and Ugaritic suggests (cf. Pope, 435). The sword of each
one is ready (at his thigh; cf. Exod 32:27*). As in 3:1*, the plural (of the night) is a
plural of generalization.
*
Solomons (carriage) is a hapax, and probably a loan word. There is no certainty whether it is
originally Greek ( in G), Sanskrit (paryanka), or Persian (upari-yana). Gerleman (139) derived it
from Egyptian pr (house), and translated it as Thronhalle. The person who had the carriage made is
identified in M as king Solomon; although the line is somewhat long, these words are not to be
deleted.
*

Since the exact nature of the is unknown, the translation of the details in its description also
remains uncertain. Thus it is not clear whether the columns served to hold up a canopy or were legs
on which it rested. The mention of silver and gold probably refers to precious inlays or decorations.
(roof) is a hapax; the meaning uncertain. The root, , means spread or stretch out (Job
17:13*; 41:42*); hence the noun has been construed as bed (G twyt), dais, roof, etc. In Cant 2:5*
the verb clearly means support, and this meaning may be behind G () and B (reclinatorium).
When the seat (a reasonable meaning for ) is described as purple ( ), this would
mean that it is decorated with cloth or precious purple dye (from the murex shellfish). Such purple
material is mentioned in connection with the vestments of the high priest (Exod 28:5*, 6*, 8*; etc.).
its roof of gold;
Its seat of purple,
its interior woven with love.
O Daughters of Jerusalem, 11
*
/go forth!
Look, O Daughters of Zion!
Upon King Solomon
in the crown with which his mother crowned him,
On the day of his marriage,
on the day of the joy of his heart.

The translation of (woven with love) is uncertain. is hapax, but in the light of
Akkadian (rapu) and Syriac, it seems to mean arrange, join, especially used of stones (cf. ,
pavement, in Ezek 40:17*; and G has in Cant 3:10*). Love is the rendering of a word
that occurs several times in the song ( ); it can be taken as the adverbial accusative, to designate
either the attitude of the worker or the loveliness of the work. It is less likely that it is in apposition to
the previous object(s), as a work of love. The emendation proposed by H. Graetz is accepted by many
scholars: (ebony); cf. Pope, 445. Others prefer (stones); e.g., Gerleman, 139, 142. All
this is conjectural, as is also Drivers proposal, based on the Arabic, that means leather here (G.
R. Driver, Supposed Arabisms in the Old Testament, JBL 55 (1936) 101120; so also NEB).
The last two words in v 10* ( , by/from the daughters of Jerusalem) are
questioned by most commentators. As the text stands, M implies that the Daughters of Jerusalem were
involved in the making of the interior of the carriage (cf. NJV). It seems better to understand Daughters
of Jerusalem in the vocative, parallel to the Daughters of Zion in v 11*. The before can be
treated as the enclitic , and attached to the preceding ; so NEB presumably, Pope (446), and
other moderns.
Angle brackets are used to indicate places where the text of M has been amended.
*

As indicated in the previous note, Daughters of Jerusalem is taken over from v 10*, and a chiastic
structure, visible in the English translation, results.
(his wedding/marriage) is a hapax, derived from . Gordis (86) rightly observes that the
pleonastic use of before on the day of the joy of his heart is correct (cf. Zech 9:9*), and does not
indicate an additional day.
This verse is filled with repetitions (daughters, crown, day), and with plays in sound:
; and (cf. L. Krinetzki [154155] for details).
Interpretation
These verses describe a procession of Solomon, which has nothing to do with the episode of
the womans search in vv 15*. They are also separate from the words of the man in 4:17* (a
waf directed to the woman). The identity of the speakers is not clear, nor is the identity of the
audience. Only v 11* is explicitly addressed to the Daughters of Zion, but this is within the
description itself, and does not necessarily mean that the previous lines are directed to them.
Gerleman has made three salient observations about 3:611*. These verses contain a
description of thingsa striking shift in the tenor of the work. Secondly, there is a pronounced
royal coloring to the passage. Thirdly, a boasting and hyperbolic tone is evident.
1
Further
observations can also be made. Only in this unit is there a clear reference to a marriage setting (v
11*), despite the alleged wedding traits which many commentators see in the entire work. There
is a conspicuous mention of Solomon in three of the six verses, and although some scholars
would remove the name, there is no compelling reason to do so. Finally, this section stands out
from the rest of the Song which consists mainly of monologues or dialogues on the part of the
lovers.

*
1
2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
*
11
1
Gerleman, 135.
The setting suggested by the royal procession and the reference to the day of marriage in v
11* is that of Solomons wedding. Gordis is quite specific: This song is the oldest datable unit
in the collection. It was written to mark the ceremonies connected with King Solomons
marriage to a foreign princess, perhaps from Egypt, across the desert. Another example of a royal
wedding hymn, not connected with Solomon, is to be found in Psalm 45. Here the arrival of the
princess elaborate entourage is described by the court poets (3:611*).
2
It seems more likely,
however, that the mention of Solomon is to be interpreted in line with the king fiction that
dominates the entire work (1:4*, 12*; 6:89*; 7:5*,[4*]; 8:1112*). Whatever may have been
the pre-literary existence of these versesand it is impossible to reconstruct this with any
certaintythey are used here to extol the man.
There is a general agreement among commentators that 3:611* is a unit. But three parts can
in fact be distinguished: a description of a procession from the desert (vv 68*); a description of

*
11
Gordis Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translation and
Commentary (New York: Ktav,
2
1974).
2
Gordis, 56.
*
8
9
*
3
*
4
*
Solomons carriage (vv 910*); and an address to the Daughters (v 11*). King Solomon
dominates this passage, as no other in the entire Song. There are many ambiguities, in addition to
the textual problem in vv 1011*. The text does not make clear if the man or the woman or both
are in the procession that is hailed in v 6*. Two awkward identifications of what comes from the
desert are presented: Solomons bed and bodyguard (vv 78*), and his elaborate and rich

6
7
8
night.
*
9
10
*
10
11
*
6
*
7
8
night.
carriage (vv 910*). It is possible that these are two separate units, united here in order to form a
continuous description of the procession from the desert. Finally, the identity of the speaker(s) is
not clear; in v 11* the Daughters of Zion (to be identified with the usual Daughters of
Jerusalem?) are addressed. Hence vv 611* can hardly be attributed to themunless, perhaps,
these verses are attributed to a spokesperson for the Daughters.
3

6* The question which begins this verse is repeated in 8:5* where it certainly refers to the
woman. However, the context (v 7*) means to identify this with Solomons bed. The woman is
never explicitly mentioned, and the presence of Solomon is not indicated until v 11*.
Commentators disagree on the identity of this: Solomon, his bride (or both), or the bed. In
view of the elaborate description of the bed/carriage which follows (vv 711*), one may
understand it as the referent.
It is clear that a procession is being described, but there is no apparent reason why it comes
from the desert. Pope points to the mythological background of midbr (desert or steppe-land,
used as a term for the netherworld in Mesopotamian and Ugaritic myth), but this does not shed
light on the function of midbr here.
4
Gerleman suggests the annual beautiful feast of the desert
valley, celebrated in Egypt, as the inspiration for the imaginative description of the Hebrew
poet.
5
This suggestion also fails to explain midbr.

3
G
A
attributes 3:611* to the bridegroom (ho nymphios), but this is not likely.
*
7
*
7
8
night.
9
10
11
4
Pope, 424426.
5
Gerleman, 136.
The comparison to the column of smoke is obscure. None of the solutions proposed by
commentators is very convincing: the pillar of cloud mentioned in the Exodus story (Exod
13:2122*); the dust raised by the procession; the smoke from the torches in the procession; etc.
The smoke may simply anticipate the mention of the burning of the incense. In any case, the
point of the description is to underline the opulence and fragrance of this procession.
78* More attention is given to the bodyguard, sixty warriors, than to Solomons litter.
These heroes are celebrated in extravagant terms: of the warriors of Israel is in effect a
superlative, and the number is twice that of Davids thirty (2 Sam 23). Their military prowess
is sufficient for any dangers in the night. Specific dangers are not mentioned, and the efforts of
commentators to identify them, or the reasons for the bodyguard, have not been successful:
demons, especially the wedding demon (cf. Tob 6:1415*); animals; or human marauders.
6
Ps
91:5* also leaves the night terror unspecified.
910* The attention shifts from the bed and bodyguard to the carriage which Solomon had
made for himself. The mention of gold, silver, and purple dye shows how precious it is. As
indicated in the Notes, the significance of the word love is unclear, if it is not a mistake.
11* The translation understands this verse as addressed to the Daughters of Jerusalem/Zion,
urging them to view Solomon on his wedding day. This is the first and only mention of a
wedding in the Song, and it appears abruptly. The fact that the woman is never mentioned could

*
21
The Lord went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of
fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.
22
Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
Exodus 13:2122 (NRSV)
*
14
Then Tobias said in answer to Raphael, Brother Azariah, I have heard that she already has been
married to seven husbands and that they died in the bridal chamber. On the night when they went in to
her, they would die. I have heard people saying that it was a demon that killed them.
15
It does not harm her, but it kills anyone who desires to approach her. So now, since I am the only son
my father has, I am afraid that I may die and bring my fathers and mothers life down to their grave,
grieving for meand they have no other son to bury them.
Tobit 6:1415 (NRSV)
6
Cf. the discussion in Pope, 436440.
*
5
You will not fear the terror of the night, or the arrow that flies by day,
Psalm 91:5 (NRSV)
be sufficient reason to discount vv 610* as a bridal procession; only the king (Solomon) is the
object of attention.
The reference to Solomons crown raises questions. The text is to be understood as a
command to look upon Solomon wearing his crown, not upon Solomon and upon his crown.
This can be either a royal crown or some kind of wedding garland (cf. Isa 61:10*). Nothing is
known about any practice in which the queen mother would have crowned her son, whether at
his coronation or on his wedding day. Hence there is no evidence to identify the crown as royal
or not. Neither can one eliminate the possibility that this detail may be only a poetic flourish.
In the light of the above interpretation, 3:611* seems to be a somewhat foreign body within
the Song. At least two levels of meaning are possible. These verses could represent a tradition
concerning a royal wedding procession of a presumably Judaean king (Solomon or another), in
which the full regalia and panoply of royalty are expressed. However, in the context of the Song
the king fiction should be recognized here. The man who is the hero of the love songs is likened
to Solomon, and the description of the glorious wedding procession is meant as a tribute to him.
A Dialogue Between the Lovers

*
6
7
8
night.
9
10
*
10
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the
garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself
with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Isaiah 61:10 (NRSV)
*
1
4

2
3
4
of warriors.
5
6
frankincense.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1
*
M Ah, you are beautiful, my friend,
ah, beautiful.
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
that stream down Mount Gilead.
2
*
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep to be shorn,
that comes up from the washing,
All of them in pairs,
3
*
Like a scarlet thread, your lips,

*

An inclusion binds together vv 17*: ;. Within the waf there is a
reprise in vv 56* of phrases occurring in 2:1617*, and a neat paronomasia in v 2*.
The first seven words, down to (doves), are a repetition of 1:15*. There is no need to
postulate haplography and translate like doves. The mention of the veil, absent in 1:15*, is widely
regarded as a gloss from v 3*; it does put the line out of balance.
The meaning of , a hapax (stream down, cf. 6:5*), is uncertain. The ancient versions vary in
their understanding, if they even read this word; cf. the discussion in Pope, 458460. Verse 1b is
repeated in 6:5b*. Mount Gilead is not a single mountain; the reference is to the hilly area in Gilead, the
Transjordan region to the east and south of the Sea of Galilee.
*

is used elsewhere only in 2 Kgs 6:6*, meaning to cut off. There is evidence from the ancient Near
East that lambs were washed before being shorn (see references in Robert, 441). Hence the translation
to be shorn; cf. GHB 121i for this nuance of the passive participle. This verse is repeated in 6:6*,
except that (ewes) replaces .
There is a remarkable paronomasia in v 2b*: / (all of them/missing), and in
chiastic sequence. As often in the Song, there is disagreement in gender: the pronominal suffixes (
) do not agree with their feminine antecedents; cf. GHG 135o. The point of the description is that
the teeth are white, and also perfectly matched (in pairs, rendering the Hipil participle of
the denominative verb, , to be double).
*

and your mouth, lovely;
behind your veil.
4
*
built in courses;
5
*
Your breasts are like two fawns,
the twins of a gazelle,

can mean the organ of speech, but also the action of speaking, and hence speech (so G ,
and B eloquium). Since the description deals with parts of the body, one may render it by mouth.
means the temple (Judg 4:2122*), but it is not easy to see how this part would be singled
out for beauty. Hence it is preferable to consider that the temple can include the jaw, and the veil
would emphasize her cheeks rather than temples. Then the reference would be to their redness, the
color of the interior of a pomegranate. On the other hand, one cannot rule out the possibility of brow
(NJV; Pope, 464) which would be partially covered by her veil.
*

Nothing is known about Davids tower, and it is mere guesswork to regard it as part of the Jerusalem
fortifications, whether of David or a later time.
(in courses) is hapax, and the meaning is unknown. For the history of attempts to
render this word, see Pope, 465468. It seems reasonable to derive the word from the Aramaic root
, to arrange in courses; cf. A. Honeyman, Two Contributions to Canaanite Toponymy, JTS 50
(1949) 5051. But the particular aspect of the comparison is not clear (a graceful, arching neck?). The
courses and shields might suggest decorations around the womans neck; cf. also 7:5* (tower of
ivory).
The parallelism indicates that (weapons) is something like a shield ( ), but the precise
nature of is not known. In light of Ezek 27:1011* (cf. also 1 Macc 4:57*), this may be a reference
to warriors shields placed upon fortification walls. Note the paronomasia: (built) and
(hang).
*
This is repeated in the parallel description of the womans physical charms in 7:4*, except that
browsing among the lilies is omitted there. The comparison made for her breasts suggests symmetry:
(twins). Still, the point of the comparison is not obvious (color or form?), nor is it clear why the
fawns are described as browsing. The phrase (browsing among the lilies)
describes the man in 2:16*, in a context where he is likened to a gazelle (2:17*; cf. 2:9*; 8:14*).
browsing among the lilies.
6
*
I shall go to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of incense.
7
*
You are all beautiful, my friend,
and there is no blemish in you.
8
*
With me from Lebanon, O bride,

*
This verse is an echo of 2:17*. Verse 6a* is exactly the same as 2:17a*, and the hill/mountain is
reminiscent of the mountains of Bether. However, 2:17* is an invitation by the woman, whereas v 6*
expresses the mans resolve, even if in words borrowed from the invitation. Furthermore, v 6*
interrupts the description of the woman, which ends in 4:7*. Perhaps the phrase, who browses among
the lilies (2:16*; 4:5*) triggered the repetition of 2:17a* here. There is not enough reason to change
the order of vv 67*, despite the obvious abruptness.
*
All is literally the whole of you: . A similar use is found in 5:16*, where the woman
concludes her waf the effect here is to recapitulate her beauty and bring the unit to a close. The English
translation retains the chiasm.
*

M reads ; the consonantal text can be vocalized differently ( ), as the ancient versions (G, L, E, B)
and many commentators (e.g., Robert, 168169, and Pope, 474) have done: Come from Lebanon.
But M (with me) yields good sense, and has a chiastic form with repetitive parallelism: come is
preceded by two phrases, and come down is followed by four phrases; cf. Albright, Archaic Survivals,
34.
(bride) need not imply marriage here; it is parallel to (my sister), a term of
endearment in 4:9*, 10*, 12*; 5:1*.
(come down) can mean look (preferred by many commentators) or travel; the latter
meaning is suggested by the parallelism with .
The Lebanon range embraces the two sections that run in a southwestnorthwest direction, north
of Palestine. The Amanah is probably to be identified with Jebel Zebedani in the Anti-Lebanon, rather
than with the Amanus range near the Taurus mountains north of the Orontes river. Senir and Hermon
are names for the same mountain (cf. Deut 3:9*; 1 Chr 5:23*), Jebel esh-Sheik, in the Lebanon range.
Lions and leopards are no longer associated with the Lebanon, but they have been witnessed in
Palestine in various historical periods.
Albright (Archaic Survivals, 3) finds an obvious reference to Canaanite mythological literature in
v 8*. It would supposedly refer to Adonis invitation to his beloved to go hunting on the Lebanon. Pope
with me from Lebanon shall you come!
Come down from the top of Amanah,
from the top of Senir and Hermon;
From dens of lions,
from ramparts of leopards.
9
*
You have ravished my heart, my sister, bride!
You have ravished my heart with one (glance) of your eyes,
with one bead of your necklace.
10
*
How beautiful is your love, my sister, bride!

(475477) summarizes further discussion of the mythological background and concludes that the
difficulties commentators have found in this passage disappear when we see the lady as the goddess,
Lady of the Steppe , Mountain Mother, and Mistress of the Beasts. It is possible that v 8* reflects
such background. But in the context, it suggests the inaccessibility of the woman, who is separated from
the man by distance and danger.
*

(a denominative verb from ) can be interpreted in two directions: to hearten or
dishearten. Probably it should be interpreted as the Piel privativum (GHG 52h). The possibility of
sexual connotations of the noun, and hence of the verb, is explored by Pope, 478480.
The use of the term sister has nothing to do with brothersister marriage. The words brother
and sister occur frequently in Egyptian love poems as terms of endearment; cf, Hermann,
Liebesdichtung, 7579. In the Song the woman never refers to the man as brother. Sister also serves
as a catchword (cf. 4:10*, 12*; 5:1*).
In (with one of your eyes) there is a grammatical disparity between the masculine
numeral and the feminine eyes. On the basis of Akkadian, Loretz (30, n. 4) argues that (eye) can
mean a precious stone that is shaped like an eye; this would give stricter parallelism but is hardly
necessary. Pope raises the possibility that v 9* is a reflection of the goddess of multiple eyes, attested in
the ancient world (481; and 456, fig. 9). The power of the eye is a common motif in love poetry: in 6:5*,
the man refers again to the spell of the womans eyes, and in the Egyptian NakhtSobek cycle, the man
writes, with her eyes she catches me, with her necklace entangles me ; cf. Simpson, Literature, 324.
(bead) is used elsewhere only in the plural, indicating a decoration on the neck (Prov 1:9*;
Judg 8:26*).
is a hapax and found here only in the plural; its relationship to (neck, 4:4*; 7:5*)
suggests the meaning of necklace, as reflected in the ancient versions.
*

How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfumes, than any spices.
11
*
Your lips drip honey, O bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
12
*
13
*

These words echo the compliments made by the woman in 1:2*. There is an effective parallelism in
and .
(spice or balsam) is found in South Arabia; the perfume is yellowish and the scent is
prized. The word is used repeatedly in the Song to designate the spice (4:14*, 15*; 5:10*) and the plant
as well (5:13*; 6:2*; 8:14*).
*

The alliteration is striking: . The usual word for honey, , occurs in v 11b*;
designates honey from the comb (Ps 19:11*), hence liquid honey. Prov 5:3* provides a parallel to
lips that drip honey; there the reference is to the seductive speech of an adulteress. However, kisses as
well as words can be meant; cf. 1:2*, and especially 5:13*, where the woman describes the mans lips as
dripping with myrrh.
The meaning of (under your tongue) is that sweets are stored here, just as curses
and mischief are found under the tongue of the wicked (Ps 10:7*), where they can be savored (Job
20:12*).
*

The translation presupposes that the should be changed to , with several Hebrew manuscripts, G,
B, and G. is used to designate a heap of stones or waves of the sea, and many commentators render
it here as spring, or the like (Gordis *88+, Lys *188+, NJV) and achieve parallelism with the fountain
( ). Pope (488489) defends the meaning pool, on the analogy of Ugaritic gl (cup), and the
(bowl) of Eccl 12:6*; would then presumably mean bowl-shaped pool. The point of the
comparisons (, enclosed) is that the woman is reserved to the man; cf. 6:2*. is repeated in
4:15*, 16*; 5:1*; cf. 6:211*; like vineyard (1:6*; 8:12*), it is an appropriate symbol for the woman.
The change of metaphor picks up a theme, fountain, that is explicit in Prov 5:16*, where the same
image, (your fountains), clearly indicates marital intimacy.
with choice fruits:
Henna with nard,
14
*
nard and saffron;
Cane and cinnamon,
with all scented woods;
Myrrh and aloes,
with all finest spices.
15
*
A garden fountain,

*

(your shoots) seems to continue the garden metaphor. The word itself, while certainly
derived from the root (send), is vague; cf. (Isa 16:8*), referring to branches. Other
translators attempt to discover here a specific part of the body; cf. Pope (490491) for discussion.
is a Persian loan word (pairidaeza) meaning enclosures, park (cf. Eccl 2:5*; Neh 2:9*).
The park is stocked with all kinds of exotic plants. The (pomegranate), already mentioned in
4:3*, is a staple Palestinian fruit. The juxtaposition of nard (plural in v 13*, singular in v
14*) is unusual, but the frequent repetition within the Song counts against an emendation here. On
nard, see 1:22*, and on henna, 1:14*.
*

Saffron ( , a hapax) is indigenous to the Himalayas, but a local variety, crocus sativus, appears in
Palestine. The flower is crushed to yield a spice.
(cane) was imported (Jer 6:20*), perhaps from central Asia where it was indigenous; it is an
aromatic. (cinnamon), prized for its aroma (Prov 7:17*), was also an import.
(scented woods) is literally trees of incense. These are indigenous to Arabia (Isa
60:6*). (myrrh and aloes, cf. Ps 45:9*) are also imports, and are noted for their
fragrance.
*

(garden fountain) is literally fountain of gardens, a fountain that irrigates gardens. The
plural may be the plural of generalization, as in 6:2* and 8:13*, or possibly an interpretation of the
original enclitic (][). The metaphor has now returned to the water symbol mentioned at the
outset (v 12*, fountain). This is intensified by the use of well ( , used of ones wife in Prov
5:15*). Grammatically, can be considered a noun or a participial adjective modifying .
a well of fresh water,
flowing from Lebanon!
16
*
Arise, north wind,
and come south wind!
Blow upon my garden,
that its spices may flow.
W Let my lover come to his garden
and eat its choice fruits.
5
1
*
M I have come to my garden, my sister, bride!

Lebanon serves here as a kind of superlative expression for the best water, such as that which would
have come from the heights in the Spring. The term also serves as a catchword with Lebanon in v 8*
(cf. also v 11*).
The entire sentence can be considered as independent (Robert, 185: a sort of exclamation) or as a
grammatical continuation of in v 12*.
*

It is possible that the woman speaks v 16a*; she is certainly the speaker in v 16b*. But it is more likely
the man, because the speaker refers to her as my garden (cf. 5:1*). He is then inviting the winds to
blow upon the garden so that its perfumes may waft (, flow is cognate with the participle ,
which denotes flowing waters in v 15*).
The North and South winds would be, respectively, cold and warm, but their function has to do with
movement rather than temperature. Parallelism may account for their mention here. There is a certain
cosmic style to this grand apostrophe. They are told to arisethe same word () is used of stirring
up love in 3:5*and to stir up the garden (the woman) for the aromatic scent.
*

This verse is dominated by the four main verbs, all in the perfect tense, with a series of double objects
(my myrrh with ). The rendering in the present perfect tense seems appropriate, in view of the
answer which the man now gives to the invitation (4:15b*) which the woman has just uttered. The basic
metaphor has changed once again; now it is a question of eating (not smelling, 4:16*) the fruits of the
garden. The man is present to the woman, enjoying the fruits which are a symbol of herself. The
myrrh and the spices obviously recall the garden description. But the other objects to be eaten refer
back to 4:12*, where her lips are said to distill honey.
Similarly, wine and milk were already mentioned in 4:1011*.
Verse lb* has been rendered in various ways, depending upon the interpretation of . (1) G, E,
B, and many moderns (RSV, NIV) understand and as parallel expressions: friends,
(?) Eat, friends, drink!
Interpretation
A new section begins in 4:1*, which has no connection with the preceding passage dealing with
Solomons procession, and finds a natural ending in the invitation of 5:1* to eat and drink of the
fruits of the garden. This unit is clearly separate from the womans second description of her
experience in seeking her lover (5:28*//3:15*).

lovers. The speaker(s) cannot be identified with any certainty; it is the man and the woman who are
addressed. However, the plural of elsewhere in the Song, and indeed in the rest of the Bible (e.g.,
Ezek 16:8*), means love, signs of affection. This negates the argument drawn from 5:16*, where
and are parallel, in the singular. (2) , as elsewhere in the Song, is taken to mean love, and
parsed as an adverbial accusative: drink deeply of love (cf. 1:4*; 4:10* for the association of
with wine). In this view can refer to the man and the woman, and the line is addressed to them by
some speaker(s) that cannot be identified with any certainty. Or conceivably might designate an
unidentified group (such as the ; cf. 1:7*; 8:13*), and the speaker is the man, to whom 5:1a* is
certainly to be attributed.
*
1
*
2
3
4
5
6
From a form-critical point of view this section can be divided into separate poems: 4:17*,
the mans description of the womans physical beauty; v 8*, his invitation to her to come from
Lebanon, which serves as a prelude to vv 911*, a song of admiration; 4:125:1*, the garden
song. These divisions are based on genre and content. The dialogue pattern running through
these verses is clear enough to give them a unity that should be honored: the man speaks of her
beauty (vv 17*), calls for her presence (v 8*), and expresses his admiration, (vv 916a*); in v

7
8
*
9
10
11
*
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1
*
16b* she invites him to the garden, and in 5:1* he affirms his acceptance of the invitation. The
section closes with a general exhortation to eat and drink (5:1b*). Whatever may have been the
origin of the individual poems, they now stand in a deliberate dialogical sequence.
It is certain that the man is the speaker of 4:916a*. The catchword is kall (bride, only in
4:812* and 5:1*). The tendency of modern commentators has been to separate vv 911* from

9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
*
16
*
8
9
10
4:125:1*.
1
Horst agrees with this, but he also admits that 4:125:1* comes extraordinarily close
to the genre of admiration poem.
2
That is quite true, and is a reason for taking them as a
continuation of vv 911*. Albright calls attention to the repetitive parallelism: baad (with
one of, v 9*), mh (how, v 10*), and ra (odor, vv 1011*).
3
The phrase gan nl occurs
twice in v 12* (emended text). The play on Lebanon and incense occurs (vv 1415*); cf. vv 6*,

11
12
1
So, e.g., Gerleman, 154158; Wrthwein, 5354; and Loretz, 3031.
2
Horst, Formen, 178.
*
9
*
10
11
3
Albright, Archaic Survivals, 34.
*
12
*
14
spices
15
8*. t is repeated in vv 9*, 10*, 12*; 5:1*; bmm in vv 10*, 14*, 16*; 5:1*; and gan in
vv 12*, 15*, 16*; 5:1*. These repetitions suggest that the lines are not to be fragmented. The
admiration song comes to an end with invitations (4:16b*; 5:1b*), but there is an ambiguity in
meaning in 5:1b*.
4:1* After a general exclamation about the womans beauty, the man begins to single out
specific parts of the body. Verses 17* constitute a classical example of the genre that has been
given the Arabic name of waf, a description of the physical charms of the loved one.
4
The genre
has a long history in the Near East, especially within Hebrew culture, as shown by the recently
discovered Genesis Apocryphon, where Sarahs beauty is described.
5
The direct object of the
praise is always the physical beauty of the beloved one (man or woman).
The description raises the question of interpretation; the comparisons sound strange to
western ears. Are they to be taken as representing objective reality, or are they meant only to
evoke sensations of a pleasurable scene? Are they representational, or only presentational?
Perhaps this is not a simple either/or question. Soulen has argued that these comparisons are
meant to convey the subjective delight of the beholder, the subject of the vision.
6
This does not
seem adequate. It would imply that any pleasurable comparison would be satisfactory; then one

*
6
frankincense.
*
14
spices
*
15
4
Horst, Formen, 180182.
5
1QapGen, col. 20 ll. 18 (Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Daniel J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic
Texts [BibOr 34; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978] 112113). Cf. Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, Philologische
Miscellen zur den Qumrantexte, RQ 2 (195960) 4648; and Wolfram Herrmann, Gedanken zur
Geschichte der altorientalischen Beschreibungslieder, ZAW 75 (1963) 176197.
6
Richard Soulen, The Wafs of the Song of Songs and Hermeneutic, JBL 85 (1967) 183190.
could just as easily apply the vision of the goats (v 1b*) or the pomegranate halves (v 3b*) to the
womans mouth (v 3a*). But the poet is not careless; he uses the image of a scarlet thread for the
mouth. The intent is representational, even if the metaphors are unusual in western judgment. On
the other hand, the descriptions are also highly symbolic and evocative. There is an inevitable
personal reaction implied in twin fawns, browsing among the lilies.
For v 1*, see the comment on 1:15 concerning the comparison of the eyes to doves. The
power of a womans eyes is a familiar theme; cf. v 9* and 6:5*; Prov 6:25*; Sir 26:9*. The veil
serves to set off the beauty of her eyes, and is not necessarily a marriage veil.
The comparison of the hair to a flock of goats may be based on the color and the undulating
flow of the hair from head to shoulders.
2* The point of this verse is that the womans teeth are white, and she has all of them, neatly
arranged. The white color is elaborately developed by the reference to the sheep, clean and white
after a washing. The sheep metaphor is continued (in pairs) in order to indicate that the teeth
are well matched and that none is missing.

*
3
*
5
*
25
Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
*
9
The haughty stare betrays an unchaste wife; her eyelids give her away.
Sirach 26:9 (NRSV)
*
2
3* The womans lips are red, and her mouth is attractive. It is not certain that raqq should
mean cheek. Gerleman retains the normal meaning of temple, and understands the veil as
creating two halves, one light, one dark (the part under the veil); this supposedly derives from an
Egyptian artistic motif of representing sliced pomegranates with light and dark halves.
7

4* The comparison of the neck to the unknown tower of David bears on the ornaments worn
by the woman. The shields and weapons hanging on the tower seem to suggest a necklace around
her neck.
5* The womans breasts are compared to the twins of a gazelle, an animal noted for its beauty
and grace. The significance of young fawns browsing among the lilies is difficult to appreciate.
The woman describes the man with this phrase in the formula of mutual possession in 2:16*.
Many excellent commentators betray an insensitive literalness here, as when the breasts are
compared to a vision of the backsides of fawns nuzzling among flowers.
8

6* The man echoes the words of the woman in 2:17*. There she invited him to the mountain;
here he declares that he shall go to the mountain. One may surmise that there is a deliberate
association between the two verses, almost as if browsing among the lilies (v 5*; cf. 2:16*) has
acted as a catch phrase to resume an earlier thought. This resolution of the man to go to the
mountain of myrrh appears to interrupt the waf, which ends in v 7*, and hence many propose
the sequence vv 5*, 7*, 6*.
9
This hardly seems necessary, since v 7* is quite general and serves
as an inclusio to v 1*. As the text stands, there is a deliberate echo of 2:1617* in 4:56*.

7
Gerleman, 147148.
*
4
of warriors.
8
Cf. Rudolph, 147; and Wrthwein, 52. Budde (21) is quite clinical.
*
7
9
E.g., Rudolph, 145146; and Loretz, 28.
*
5
6
frankincense.
The meaning of the aromatic mountain/hill is left unspecified. The entire person of the
woman seems to be meant, rather than a specific part of the body, as is suggested by the
concluding summation in v 7*, all beautiful. Gerleman advises against any explicit
identification of the mountain of myrrh and hill of incense. This is to be understood as
stereotyped language that evokes wonderland (such as the region of Punt in the Egyptian love
songs); one is moving in the unreal, make-believe world of love poetry.
10

8* This verse is widely held to be an interruption, with no continuity with what precedes or
follows.
11
After the man states his resolve to go to the aromatic mountains (v 6*), he is suddenly
asking the woman to come away from Lebanon, a mountain wilderness where wild animals
dwell. However, the geography of v 8* makes sense only if understood metaphorically. The
Lebanon range is miles distant from the Amanus and Hermon; these latter mountains are part of
the Anti-Lebanon (if the Amanus is not to be situated much further away in the Taurus region!).
The point of these geographical indications lies in their characterization as the lairs of wild
animals. The woman is not physically present on these mountains, and the man could hardly call
to her there. The metaphor stands for her inaccessibility, a theme that appeared already in 2:14*
(crags and rocks). The animals are not threats to her, but to those who would try to reach her. A
similar theme appears in the Cairo Ostracon 25218, where the lover is separated from his
beloved by a croco-dile.
12

If v 8* is understood metaphorically, it follows easily enough upon the waf in vv 17*, and
prepares for the outburst of admiration which begins with v 9*. The man, who has been speaking
since 4:1*, continues throughout until v 16*. There seems to be a catchword principle operating
in vv 69*: lbn (incense) and lbnn (Lebanon)the same sequence as in 4:1415*.

10
Gerleman, 150 and esp. 152.
11
Cf. Gerleman, 151152; Loretz, 29; and Rudolph, 148149.
12

Simpson, Literature, 310:
The love of my sister lies on yonder side,
and the river is between [us];
a crocodile waits on the sandbank.
Yet Ill go down to the water,
Ill head into the waves;
my heart is brave on the water,
and the waves like land to my legs.
*
As often, catchwords are ambivalent. Instead of being the principle for uniting disparate pieces,
they could be in this case signs of a unitary composition.
9* This is the first time that the woman is addressed as my sister, a term frequently used of
the beloved in Egyptian love poetry. Bride (which occurs six times and only in 4:85:1*) locks

6
frankincense.
7
8
9
*
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
spices
15
16
1
vv 916* in with v 8*. The designation need not be taken literally; it is used in anticipation, as a
love-name.
Here eyes have a ravishing, enchanting effect upon the man (in contrast to 4:1*). The
ravishing of his heart is paradoxically the danger which he wants to endure, just as when the
woman calls out that she is love-sick, it is a sickness that she cannot do without. Both this verse
and 6:5* have to be seen in the context of the love relationship between them. There is a certain
heightening with the mention of one bead of the necklace she wears, which has an amulet
quality. The role of the heart in affairs of love is of course well known; cf. 3:11* where the
wedding day is the day of the joy of his heart.
10* The man is praising her caresses, the expression of her love for him. He couches his praise
in terms derived from her description of his love in 1:2*; a comparison to wine, and the
mention of fragrance. The repeated reference to fragrance is deliberate; the topos of smell is
common in love poetry, and will be further developed in the garden theme of 4:125:1*.
11* The reference to lips probably underscores the tenderness of her speech and kisses.
Again fragrance is touched on, as he compares the scent of her garments to that of Lebanon. This
is hardly a reference to the specific odor of cedar, since presumably there was also much
vegetation there; Lebanon would be a symbol of all that is fragrant.
12* The garden theme (4:125:1*) is complex. The metaphor fluctuates between garden and
water source (mayn, vv 12*, 15*), but the major attention is focused upon the fruits and exotic
perfumes of the garden. The peculiarity of the metaphor lies in the style of comparison, or better,
the absence of comparison. The woman is almost forgotten in the full description of the exotic
products. This garden is unreal, in the sense that no garden in the ancient Near East would have
nourished such a wide variety of plants and trees. Gerleman rightly calls it a utopian, fantasy-
garden, that contains the precious aromatic plants of the ancient world.
13
One suspects that the
terms are chosen for sound and exotic qualities, rather than for botanical reasons.
14

The point of garden enclosed is that the woman belongs to the man alone. One is moving
in the same world of thought as Prov 5:1519*. It is difficult to agree with Gordis when he

13
Gerleman, 159.
14

Jerrold S. Cooper (New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 90 [1971] 157162, esp. 161
162) has compared the language of a Sumerian literary text (a description which a certain Ludingira
presents of his mother) with Cant 4:1215*. He translates the relevant portion of the Sumerian text as
follows:
My mother is rain from heaven, water for the finest seed,
A harvest of plenty ,
An irrigation ditch carrying luxuriant waters to the garden plots,
Cooper comments (162): Were it not for the words mother in Ludingira, and sister, bride in the
Song of Songs, it would be difficult to detect any difference in the tenor of the two passages, and this
tenor is decidedly erotic. While this is expected in the Song of Songs, it is problematic in the description
of Ludingiras mother. Perhaps the author was using the only vocabulary he knew for describing a
woman, vocabulary drawn from erotic literature, where most descriptions of women would naturally be
found. Cooper allows for a certain amount of subjectivity (162 n. 21) in the recognition of erotic
imagery, but his main point is well taken. The erotic quality of the imagery of garden, fruit, waters, etc. is
remarkable, and it is effective. It is interesting to note that Ludingiras description of his mother is given
so that his messenger will be able to recognize her; the same device is used in Cant 5:916*. On the
symbolic aspect of the garden, see Francis Landy, The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden, JBL 98
(1971) 513528; and also Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of
Songs (BLS; Sheffield: Almond, 1983) 189265. Cf. Keel, 158164.
*
15
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
16
Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
regards v 12* as a complaint by the lover that the woman is sealed off from him, and v 15* as
her denial of his charge by asserting that she is a well of flowing or fresh water.
15
Rather, both
verses mean the same thing, although the metaphors (sealed fountain, well) differ. She is his
exclusive water source, and also a source in the garden which he describes.
1314* On these various plants, see the remarks in the Notes.
16
As already indicated, the
variety of the plants is deliberately overwhelming and exaggerated.
15* The man returns to the metaphor of water; the fountain is further defined as a well of
flowing water, like the flow that cascades from Lebanon during the thaw. Presumably this waters
the garden he has been describing.
16* The summons to the winds to ventilate my garden can be attributed to either the man or
the woman. But v 16b* is certainly spoken, by her. It seems better to attribute v 16a* to him; it
thus forms a climax to the garden description, and it serves to provoke an appropriate reply from
her.
5:1* The garden theme is continued as the man responds to the womans invitation. There is a
certain gravity to the four verbs (all in the perfect tense) and in the threefold repetition of im
(with, cf. 4:1314*).
17
In effect, he replies that he has taken possession of her, and he
expresses this in metaphors (spices, honey, wine, milk) that were used in 4:1014*.

17
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers.
18
19
by her love.
15
Gordis, 88.
*
13
14
spices
16
Bibliography relevant to the plants and perfumes is given in Robert, 444; see also Michael Zohary,
Flora, IDB 2 (E-J), 284302.
17
Robert, 187188.
*
10
The varying interpretations of 5:1b* have been discussed in the Notes. The translation
understands the exhortation as addressed to friends, i.e., either to the man and woman, or to a
group associated with them. Some commentators take v 1b* to be a poetic aside by the author,
who addresses the lovers with positive affirmation.
18
In a wedding context one or other of the
lovers might address friends who are participating in the celebration. It seems preferable to
interpret the imperatives as addressed to the lovers, and a fitting ending to the description of their
love in the preceding dialogue emerges.
A Dialogue Between the Woman and the Daughters
2
*
W I was sleeping, but my heart was awake:
Hark! My lover knocking!
(M) Open to me, my sister, my friend,
my dove, my perfect one!
For my head is wet with the dew;
my hair, with the moisture of the night.
3
*
(W) I have taken off my clothes;

11
12
13
14
spices
18
Cf. Wrthwein, 55; and Gerleman, 162.
*

(awake) stands in deliberate contrast to (sleeping). Hence a dream or fantasy is a
reasonable interpretation, even if the text is ambiguous. The woman proceeds to relate an experience
she had while in this state.
(hark) is literally the sound of; cf. 2:8*. The abruptness is in contrast to the detailed description
of the mans approach in 2:89*. The narrative style is made more vivid by the direct address in vv 23*.
The accumulation of the terms of endearment is further emphasized by the alliterative effect of the
pronominal endings: , , , .
Hair is a probable translation of the hapax (cf. v 11*). The lover urges that he be let in,
adducing discomfort from the heavy Palestinian dew.
am I then to put them on?
I have washed my feet;
am I then to soil them?
4
*
W My lover put his hand through the hole,
and my heart trembled on account of him.
5
*
I got up to open to my lover,
and my hands dripped myrrh;
My fingers, flowing myrrh
on the handles of the lock.
6
*
I opened to my lover,

*

By (clothes) is meant the main undergarment of both men and women, which reached to the
knees or ankles. Its removal, and also the washing of feet, would indicate preparation to retire.
is literally how (an emphatic and rare form of ; cf. Est 8:6*). Note the repetitive
parallelism: (am I then to put them on?) (am I then to soil
them?).
*

is literally from the hole; the description of the action suggests that he inserts his hand into
the latch or keyhole of the door from the outside, seeking entrance. Cf. the use of , from, in 2:9*;
can possibly be translated to in the light of Ugaritic usage (cf. Pope, 518).
(my heart) is literally my innards. The verb (trembled) designates a physical and
emotional response, either in pain (Isa 16:11*) or, as here, in joy (Jer 31:20*).
It is also possible to translate as for him. There is no reason to adopt (within me),
which is found in some Hebrew manuscripts but in none of the ancient versions.
*

The opening words of v 5* ( ) and v 6* ( ) are emphatic. The pleonastic use of
is frequent in Ecclesiastes (cf. GHB 146b).
It is not clear whence the (myrrh) comes, whether from the door latch or the womans own
hands. One may infer that the man had anointed the lock with myrrh; this was already a symbol of his
presence in 1:13*. The repeated mention of the myrrh on the womans hands is deliberate and
emphatic: the myrrh is flowing ( , a play on the word gone, , in v 6*), as opposed to dry,
resinous myrrh, reached by cutting into the wood (Robert, 202).
but my lover had turned, gone!
I swooned when he left.
I sought him but I did not find him;
I called out after him, but he did not answer me.
7
*
It was I the watchmen came upon,
They struck me, wounded me;
they tore off the mantle I had on,
the watchmen on the walls.
8
*
9
*
D How does your lover differ from any lover,

*

Chiasm characterizes the terse style: I opened to my lover; my lover gone. The asyndetic
construction (turned, gone) is striking and emphatic, as is the repetition of (my
lover).
I swooned is literally my went out; the phrase is used in the sense of physical death in Gen
35:18*. While the situation is obviously not so dire here, her reaction is to faint from loss of breath at
the departure of her lover.
The most obvious meaning of is when he spoke. But this sense does not seem appropriate
unless one moves the phrase to v 4b*, a somewhat arbitrary solution. On the basis of cognate languages
(Akkadian and Arabic), the root dbr/dpr can be understood as turn or flee; cf. LVTL, 201, with
reference to CAD 3 (duppuru, 186188) and AHW 1 (duppuru[m], 177).
The theme of seeking/finding is also found in the parallel scene, 3:15*.
*
The exact meaning of (mantle) is not clear; it could be a veil or an outer cloak. The severe
reaction of the (watchmen) is hard to fathom, as it contrasts with their role in 3:34*. But the
play on the word find remains ( ; cf. 3:23*). She cannot find her lover, but the guardians of the
town find her.
*
The adjuration to the Daughters is reminiscent of 2:7*; 3:5*; and 8:4*; but it serves a different purpose
here. It is nonetheless abrupt, even if it fits the womans desolation. Her charge to the Daughters serves
to set up the dialogue that follows. Love-sickness was featured already in 2:5*.
*
The question posed by the Daughters is literally What is your lover from (= more than) a lover? For
this use of , see HSyn 473. The implication is that the Daughters need some way of identifying the
lover. There is a striking similarity in the literary style of the questions raised by the Daughters (5:9*;
6:1*); they are characterized by repetitive parallelism (cf. Albright, Archaic Survivals, 4).
How does your lover differ from any lover,
that you adjure us so?
10
*
W My lover is radiant and ruddy,
outstanding among ten thousand.
11
*
His head is gold, pure gold;
his hair, palm fronds,
black as a raven.
12
*
His eyes, like doves

*

The translation of (radiant and ruddy) is adequate, but the red color has raised questions
as to whether the reference is to true body color or a cosmetic. Gerleman (172173), who inclines to the
latter opinion, remarks that both adjectives may be considered symbolic, due to their inherent
emotional tone, rather than concrete descriptions. The rest of the description of the mans body
presents similar problems. Tournay has pointed out that David is described , ruddy, in 1 Sam
16:12*; 17:42* (in Robert, 445).
(Qal passive participle, masculine singular) is of uncertain meaning; see the discussion of
at 2:4. The translation outstanding follows the sense of the versions: G , picked out of
a military unit; B electus, chosen; and E gb, chosen. In context the man is singled out from everyone
else because of his physical beauty. The same general meaning can be reached if the root meaning of
is to look (so Pope, 532: conspicuous).
*

The construction (gold, pure gold) is difficult; both terms designate some kind of refined
gold. They are in apposition, or perhaps is to be read as a construct form; G separates them with a
conjunction (cf. Dan 10:5*).
The meaning of (palm fronds), a hapax, is uncertain. It seems to refer to the branches of
the date palm (so G and B, followed by Robert [212213] and others), and presumably is used here to
designate his full head of hair. Others prefer curls (cf. NJV), and derive the meaning from (small
hill).
*

Cf. 1:15* and 4:1*, for doves. The point of the comparison here is not the eyes of the dove, but doves
at a water pool. Thus far, the comparison would seem to bring out the glistening character of eyes.
Presumably, the doves are wet with the water and their feathers shine. In M the description of the doves
continues in v 12b*, according to which they wash in milk and sit by pools (?).
by the water streams.
His teeth, washed in milk,
set in place.
13
*
His cheeks, like beds of spice
that put forth aromatic blossoms.
His lips, lilies
that drip flowing myrrh.
14
*
His arms, rods of gold

The insertion of (his teeth), for which there is no external textual evidence, follows the
suggestion made by Alberto Vaccari (Note critiche ed esegetiche, Bib 28 [1947] 399401) and adopted
by Rudolph (158159) and others. There are solid reasons for the insertion: 1) v 12b* is an apt
description of the mans teeth, which are otherwise strangely left unmentioned (contrast 4:2*; 6:6*); 2)
in M the whole verse of two lines is given to the eyes, in contrast to other parts of the body which have
one line each; 3) except for v 12b* in M, each line begins with the mention of a particular part of the
body.
(set in place) is literally sitting in fullness. The translation understands this
as a reference to the firmness of the teeth set in the gums. If one follows M, the reference would be to
the place where the doves rest, such as water (so G and B). The obscurity of this reference has not been
resolved by emendation nor the ingenuity of commentators. Cf. the discussion in Pope, 538539.
*

On the analogy of 6:2*, it is likely that consonantal should be vocalized as a plural, though M
L

reads it as singular; the plural reading is supported by some Hebrew manuscripts as well as the ancient
versions. (beds) is thus a catchword, associating v 13* with 6:2*; (flowing myrrh)
harks back to 5:5*. The comparison seems to have in mind the mans perfumed beard; fragrance is a
frequent topos in the poem.
With support of the ancient versions (G ; B consitae a), consonantal is preferably
read as the Piel feminine plural participle of (i.e., , *that+ put forth or grow; cf. the
Pual usage in Ps 144:12*). M vocalizes (towers), which Loretz (36) and Gerleman (175)
interpret to refer to the shape of perfume bottles.
(lilies) are mentioned in 2:1*, 2*, 16*; 4:5*; 6:2* (v 13* may provide a catchword with
this verse) and 7:3*[2*]. See the discussion at 2:1. The use of the flower here may have less to do with
the color of the mans lips than with the delight they provide, because they drip myrrh just as her lips
drip honey in 4:11*; see also the role of the sachet of myrrh in 1:13, and the flowing myrrh in 5:5.
*

adorned with Tarshish stones.
His belly, a work of ivory
covered with sapphires.
15
*
His legs, columns of alabaster
set in golden sockets.
His stature, like Lebanon,
select as the cedars.
16
*
His mouth is sweetness;
he is all delight.
Such is my lover, such my friend,
O Daughters of Jerusalem!
6
1
*
D Where has your lover gone,

Hebrew usually means hand, but it can be used to indicate the forearm; cf. Gen 24:30*, 47*; Jer
38:12*.
The root meaning of is roll (); hence the term should designate round objects, such as
cylinders or rods.
is literally Tarshish, which stands for both the place (in the Mediterranean area?) and
products that come from there, in this case apparently some kind of gemstones. The description of the
mans arms centers on the ornaments they bear.
Although (belly) usually designates the interior of the body, the exterior is meant here; cf.
Dan 2:32*. See above, p. 72 n. 305.
(work) is hapax; the meaning is uncertain. Robert (221) points out that translations and
commentaries have hesitated between two meanings: a solid mass (wrought metal in rabbinical
Hebrew), or something polished and shining (cf. Jer 5:28*).
In the ancient world (sapphires) were lapis lazuli, a rich azure-blue stone. The description
of the mans belly resembles that of a statue.
*
(stature) is literally appearance; cf. 2:14*, where the same word is used of the woman.
*
(palate) is used to designate the mouth, both here and in 7:10*[9*]. Sweetness is associated with
the mouth in v 13*; cf. 4:11*.
*
For the repetitive style, compare 5:9*. The question indicates that the description of the lover has
enlisted the interest of the Daughters as to his whereabouts. (seek) harks back to 5:6.
Where has your lover turned,
that we may seek him with you?
2
*
W My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spice;
To browse in the garden,
and to gather lilies.
3
*
I am my lovers,
and he is mine;
he browses among the lilies.
Interpretation
There seems to be a clear break after the garden song ends in 5:1*; the woman begins to relate an
adventure in the style of 3:14*. One may recognize my sister as a catchword (5:1*, 2*), and
perhaps also rr (arise/ awake) in 4:16* and 5:2*. The man does not utter a word in this
section; then he begins a new unit (6:410*) with a description of the woman. Throughout, the

*

For (garden), cf. 4:12* and 5:1*, where it symbolizes the woman. Of itself, (go down) need
not denote a descent to Sheol, as interpreted by the cultic school of thought (e.g., Meek, 131; cf. Ring-
gren, 26). (beds *of spice+) seems to be a catchword with 5:13*.
Browse is the same word () that is used in v 3* as well as 2:16* and 4:5* (browse among the
lilies).
*
There is an inversion in v 3a*, but the sentiment is the same as in 2:16*; cf. 7:11*.
*
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
banners?
woman does most of the talking, beginning with the description of her experience (5:28*) and
moving to a description of the mans beauty (5:1016*).
This section can be viewed as a unity because of the interplay between the woman and the
Daughters of Jerusalem. After the description of her experience (5:27*), the woman addresses
the Daughters (v 8*), who respond with a question (v 9*) which provokes her description of the
lover (vv 1016*). Thus far, there is a deliberate unity.
1
Moreover, 6:13* may be regarded as a

*
10
11
12
13
14
15
cedars.
16
*
2
3
4
5
6
7
1
Rudolph, 153; and Loretz, 34.
natural continuation of the dialogue between the woman and the Daughters which began in
5:2*.
2
One need not deny that the questions in 5:9* and 6:1* form the literary links between
various genres. These questions can just as easily be attributed to the original author as to an
editor. They point to a deliberate effort to unify the thought of 5:26:3*, an effort which is not
always so clearly shown in the rest of the work. The continuity of the whole is created by the
theme of the absence of the lover, to which the question of the Daughters (v 9*) naturally
responds. The narrative then becomes a dialogue between the woman (5:1016*; 6:23*) and the
Daughters (6:1*).
The scene in 5:27* is clearly parallel to 3:14*, while deliberately different in details. The
phrasing in v 2a* is perhaps more suggestive of a dream sequence than is 3:1a*, but even were
this a dream, the whole unit is better classified in the genre of description of an experience.
3

The woman is relating an episode, whatever the degree of the reality. But do vv 27* clearly
describe a dream? They recall old motifs that appear in 3:14* (cf. also 2:8*): the seeking and
not finding (3:12*; 5:6*), the encounter with the watchmen of the city (3:3*; 5:7*), and the
adjuration to the Daughters (3:5*; 5:8*). But none of these elements demands a dream context.
4

*
1
2
to gather lilies.
3
2
Cf. Ringgren, 26; and Wrthwein, 59.
*
2
to gather lilies.
3
3
So Horst (Formen, 184), who further identifies these lines as a dream experience; and similarly,
e.g., Rudolph (155156) and Wrthwein (58).
*
1
Numerous parallels to the events described in 5:27* have been adduced by commentators.
The exclusus amator in the De rerum natura of Lucretius can be said to resemble the man, in so
far as the excluded lover does not gain entrance into the house of the woman. According to
Lucretius, the lover weeps, and often covers the threshold with flowers and anoints the door.
5

The motif appears with considerable expansion and variation in several literary sources, and the
description of the events in 5:27* is in harmony with the motif. One feature does not seem to be
present in the Song, and that is the paraklausithyron, or lament at the door.
6
Nowhere does the
lover lament in 5:27*. He is an excluded lover; he fails to gain entrance, undoubtedly a
frequent experience among human beings. But the essence of the paraklausithyron is
complaint, and this is totally absent. On the contrary, if there is a complaint, it seems to be
perhaps implicit in the story as told by the woman, almost blaming herself for the trouble she had
to undergo in her search for him. Again we are in the area of love topoi and love language, and
we may expect the Song to reflect the typical experiences of people in love, just as the theme of
the exclusus amator also does.
7

2
*
6
4
See the comments on 3:14*, p. 146 above.
5
De rerum natura 4.11771179 (W. H. D. Rouse, tr., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura [LCL; Cambridge,
Harvard University; London: William Heinemann,
3
1937] 330332): But the lover shut out, weeping,
often covers the threshold with flowers and wreaths, anoints the proud doorposts with oil of marjoram,
presses his love-sick kisses upon the door. (at lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepa I floribus et
sertis operit postisque superbos I unguit amaracino et foribus miser oscula figit). Some contact with the
practice of anointing the door of the beloved with myrrh cannot be excluded from 5:4*, although myrrh
in the Song (1:13*; 3:6*; 4:6*, 14*; 5:1*, 5*, 13*) may have its own independent and indefinable
function. Considerable material relative to the excluded lover as literary motif is to be found in Frank
O. Copley, Exclusus Amator: A Study in Latin Love Poetry (American Philological Monographs 17;
Madison: American Philological Association, 1956).
6
The attempts of both Pope (522524) and Gerleman (165: Trklagegedicht) to adduce this parallel to
our passage are unconvincing.
7

For the theme of the door in Egyptian love poetry, note the following lines from the Papyrus Harris
(Simpson, Literature, 300301):
Back at the farmstead of my girl:
the doorway in the center of the house,
her door left ajar,
her door bolt sprung;
my girl is furious!
If I were made the doorkeeper
I could make her mad at me,
then at least Id hear her voice when she is angry,
and Id play the child afraid of her.
In the Nakht-Sobek cycle, the following lines occur (Simpson, Literature, 324325):
See what the lady has done to me!
Faugh! Shall I keep silent for her sake?
She made me stand at the door of her house
while she went inside.
She didnt say to me, come in, young man,
but deaf to me remained tonight.
I passed by her house in the dark,
I knocked and no one opened,
What a beautiful night for our doorkeeper!
Open, door bolts!
Door leaves you are my fate, you are my genie.
Our ox will be slaughtered for you inside.
Door leaves do not use your strength.
The waf (5:1016*) is a description of physical attributes, the only such description of the
male in the Hebrew Bible; it is similar to the style of enumeration in 4:17* and 7:210*[19*].

It seems inevitable that such a theme would emerge in love poetry, and it is worth noting that the
treatment of the door varies from poem to poem.
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7
8
9
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
This poem is very symmetrical: one line for each part of the body (emended text in v 12*). The
comparisons are either by direct predicate nominatives or by means of the preposition like.
8

The style is strange to our western taste, but it must be respected.
9

6
7
8
9
*
12
8
Although Gerleman (177) has exaggerated the influence of Egyptian pictorial art in these descriptions,
his words have relevance for the treatment of the man, where the terms seem particularly appropriate
for a statue or a picture (172): The path to understanding the metaphorical language of the Song does
not always lead through exterior appearance. The expressive power of these images is associated to a
very high degree with their derivation from an erotic content that is bound up with feeling. Thanks to
the emotional content, they are to be acknowledged as sensuous even when there is a minimum of
reality expressed by them.
9

The description of Jerusalems princes in Lam 4:7* is cut from the same cloth:
Brighter than snow were her princes,
Whiter than milk,
More ruddy than coral,
More precious than sapphires.
Cf. also the description of Simon, the high priest, in Sir 50:121*, especially vv 510* (RSV):
How glorious he was when the people gathered round him
as he came out of the inner sanctuary!
Like the morning star among the clouds,
5:2* The womans description of herself is at least ambiguous. Literally understood, her words
support a dream interpretation, more than the vague mention of a bed in the parallel passage,
3:15*. However, the reference to the knocking at the door and to the voice of the man can be
taken to mean that she was thereby awakened from sleep.
10
As was stated above concerning 3:1
5*, there is little to choose between a real dream and daydreaming, in which love indulges its
fantasy.
11
There are some differences in details between 3:14* and 5:27*, but these have no
particular exegetical significance. They can be understood as flowing from the freedom of
fantasy.
The arrival of the lover is described suddenly, in contrast to the description of his visit in
2:89*. The reason he gives for desiring to enter is relief from the night dew, which is assuredly

like the moon when it is full;
like the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High,
and like the rainbow gleaming in glorious clouds;
like roses in the days of the first fruits,
like lilies by a spring of water,
like a green shoot on Lebanon on a summer day;
like fire and incense in the censer,
like a vessel of hammered gold
adorned with all kinds of precious stones;
like an olive tree putting forth its fruit,
and like a cypress towering in the clouds.
10
Cf. L. Krinetzki, 179.
11
The very beginning of the womans narrative gives one pause. The man is portrayed as knocking on
her (presumably locked) door at night when she has retired. Gianfranco Nolli (Cantico dei Cantici [La
Sacra Bibbia; Torino/Roma: Marietta, 1968] 112113) asks some pertinent questions: Would he not
have aroused the family of the woman? What would they have said, had they heard her and become
aware of her opening the door? Nolli concludes that the purpose of the song is to serenade the woman,
as Romeo did under Juliets balcony. These questions, reasonable in themselves, nevertheless
historicize the situation in a manner foreign to the nature of the narrative. If the narrative had any
basis in reality at one time, it has now become the vehicle of the womans feelings about the
presence/absence of her lover.
heavy in Palestine. Yet there seems to be a deliberate exaggeration here; it is clear that this is not
the real reason for seeking entrance.
12

3* The reply of the girl might suggest that she is bothered by her lovers request. But the
context shows that this is not the case. Her remonstrations are to be interpreted as a tease, not as
a refusal. His reactions in vv 45* show this; he attempts to open the door and she rises to let
him in. This does not suggest a refusal. The tease is expressed in neat symmetrical lines, and it is
as illogical as his excuse (the dew) to gain entrance.
13
It is off the mark to see in her reply and in
his ensuing departure a testing of love. The literary motif of testing can hardly be exemplified
by such an unreal, flimsy excuse.
14

12
There is no room for Gerlemans suggestion (165) that the description of the dew-laden hair suggests
the majesty of youth.
*
3
*
4
5
13
If the tease interpretation is rejected, then the suggestion of Nolli (113115) needs to be
considered. He claims that the words are spoken by the man, and the genre is serenata (serenade). In
this view, the man asks to come in (v 2*) and indicates that he is prepared to spend the night with the
woman, having taken off his tunic and cleansed his feet.
14
Contra L. Krinetzki, 179. Moreover, in order to understand the night visit of the lover, one cannot
simply assume, as Krinetzki does, that the man and the woman are betrothed. Rather, the poetry moves
in the realm of fantasy.
4* The man apparently attempts to open the lock; the woman reacts with emotion and (v 5*)
rises to give him entrance. Despite the ambiguity of the term r (hole), there is not sufficient
reason to see here a reference to sexual activity.
15
The symbolism of r may point in that
direction, but the man remains always outside the womans residence. If there is a double
meaning here, it is muted, as throughout the Song. The scene prepares for the symbolism of the
myrrh at the door (v 5*).
5* The myrrh on the lock comes either from the man or the woman; it seems more reasonable
that the man is responsible. When she says that her fingers dripped myrrh, she means that she
placed her hands on the anointed lock. The precise symbolism of the myrrh is not easy to
determine. At the very least it is a sign from the lover. He put it there, perhaps as a token of his
love and a tangible sign of his presence (cf. 1:13*), even though he disappears.
6* The narrative continues by way of taking up again previous words (open, my lover),
and describes again (cf. v 4*) the womans emotional state. But this time it is one of utter dismay
over the departure of the man. The mans departure means, at the least, that he had interpreted
the tease of v 3* as a refusal, and he leaves after putting his hand to the lock, apparently
unsuccessful in gaining entrance. (Is his departure also to be taken as a tease in response to her
words in v 3*?). The sudden appearance of the seeking/(not) finding motif is due to a deliberate
imitation of 3:12*. The woman engages in a desperate, futile search.
7* Again a detail (the watchmen) from the scene in chapter 3 appears. But the harsh
treatment meted out to the woman here is in sharp contrast to the encounter described in 3:34*.
Perhaps her failure to discover the man at once (as in 3:4*) is enough to account for the addition
of this graphic detail of physical beating. The result of the search is diametrically opposite to
3:4*, and the loss of his presence is pointed up by the pain of her own frantic wandering and the

*
4
*
5
15
Contra Pope, 519; Wrthwein, 58; and others.
*
3
4
blows of the watchmen. Commentators usually report that her treatment suggests she was taken
for a harlot (some Assyrian laws forbid harlots to wear veils); if so, the detail has no significance
in the story.
16

8* The appearance of the Daughters of Jerusalem is sudden, for there has been no suggestion
that the woman was relating this experience to them. Yet this seems to be allowed by the flexible
role given to these characters within the Song; they appear with equal suddenness after 3:14*.
The adjuration to them is modeled on 2:7* and 3:5* (also 8:4*), but the content is of course
changed in view of a new context. In 3:4* the woman was able to enlist the watchmen, in the
search for the lover. Now she appeals to the Daughters; they are to tell him of her love-sickness
(cf. 2:5*). The function of the Daughters continues in a new and creative way, when they take up
her address in v 9*.
9* The question addressed to the woman by the Daughters looks backward and forward: it
responds to her implicit request for help in searching for him, but it also sets up the opportunity
for her to launch into a description of the lover. Is this verse the work of an editor who wanted to
join 5:28* with 5:1016*? This is plausible, but one cannot rule out the possibility that the
experiences related in chapter 5 could have been composed as a unit. The answer to the question
depends in part upon a final judgment concerning the function of the Daughters in the entire
work. They seem to be original components, rather than editorial creations.
10* The description of the youth begins with what seems to be a general statement about his
color. It is possible that the adjectives are to be understood symbolically because of their inherent
power to express feeling.
17
The description proceeds from the top down, head to legs.
11* A symbolic quality is particularly apparent in the adjectives used to describe the mans
head (gold, pure gold).
18

12* The eyes of the youth are compared to doves (like, in contrast to 1:15* and 4:1*, where
the womans eyes are said to be doves). It is the expansion of the comparison that creates the
difficulty. The phrase by the water streams fills out the description of the doves, not the eyes.
Verse 12b*, according to M, is to be understood of the doves, and yet somehow as furnishing a

16
Cf. Pope, 527.
*
10
17
So Gerleman, 172.
*
11
18
Gerleman (173) appropriately refers to the Odyssey 6.232234, where Athene pours charm on the
head of Odysseus as a goldsmith pours out silver and gold.
point of comparison for the eyes. Hence it is usually explained as referring to the eyes set in
white (washing in milk) and in sockets (sitting in fullness). The comparison seems to have
become an end in itself and is strikingly different from the other lines. There is no certain
interpretation of this verse, as can be seen from the diversity among commentators.
19

As indicated in the Notes, the conjectural insertion of teeth makes the metaphor of the milk
bath and fullness more intelligible; the reference then would be to the white teeth set in firm
gums.
13* The description of the cheeks highlights the beard which is richly scented.
20
The
comparison of lips to lilies may refer to their color, or also their shape. Moreover, they drip
choice myrrh, i.e., his kisses give delight; the thought is akin to 4:11* (the womans lips) and
5:5* (the theme of myrrh at the lock of the door).
14* The mans arms are rods of gold, decorated with precious stones. The description in vv
1415* returns to metaphors that suggest a statue, as many commentators point out. There is no
evidence in the Old Testament for such elaborate ornamentation of the male arm.
21

The description of the belly as ivory may refer to the color of the skin or to smoothness.
22

Perhaps the intention is merely to bring out how precious his body is.

19
E.g., Gerleman (174) understands milk and fullness as referring to the well-being and plenty the
doves enjoy. L. Krinetzki (191) relates the milk to the whiteness of the doves and hence of the eyes.
Pope (502, 538539) sees the doves Splashing in the milky spray, Sitting by brimming pools. Cf. also
Keel, 187189.
20
This is the appropriate sense, however the reading of M (towers) is to be explained; see the Notes, p.
166 above.
*
14
*
14
15
cedars.
21
Gerleman (177) rightly rejects the suggestion of Rudolph (160) that the reference is to a tattoo, or to
blue veins. Such interpretations exaggerate the representational aspect of the description.
22
Pope, 544. Gerleman (176) refers to the scene in the Odyssey 18.196 in which Athene brings it about
that the sleeping Penelope is made whiter than ivory.
15* Ben Sira describes the virtuous woman in similar terms: Golden columns on silver bases
are her shapely limbs and feet (Sir 26:18*). The sheen and whiteness of alabaster would seem to
be the point of the comparison.
The statement in v 15b* concerning the youths stature (mareh, appearance, cf. 2:14*)
attempts to capture a total impression. He is compared to the majestic cedars of Lebanon (cf. Am
2:9*).
16* The reference to the mouth is probably in view of the kisses which she receives from him
(cf. 1:2*). In 7:10*[9*] he returns the compliment to her.

*
15
cedars.
*
18
Like golden pillars on silver bases, so are shapely legs and steadfast feet.
Sirach 26:18 (NRSV)
*
9
Yet I destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of cedars, and who was as
strong as oaks; I destroyed his fruit above, and his roots beneath.
Amos 2:9 (NRSV)
*
16
*
8
*
9
When the woman calls him my friend, she uses (only here) the masculine form of the term
which he uses frequently of her (rrayt). With this the boastful description of his charms
comes to an end.
6:1* The reaction of the Daughters is clearly modeled on 5:9*: both are questions, both repeat
key phrases, both are designed to lead to an unstated but purposeful activity on the part of the
Daughters. In v 1* they imply that her description of the man has caught their fancyhence their
offer to help her find him. The search motif has occurred already in the song (1:78*; 3:15*)
and is intrinsic to love language. The search for Dumuzi or for Baal, while parallel to the motif,
have quite different contexts.
23

2* The womans response cuts off any hope the Daughters may have had concerning a
possible relationship with the man. The poiot of vv 23* is that the lover was never really lost to
her, even though he was absent according to the story she related in 5:27*. This point is
expressed in symbolic language in v 3*: his garden is the woman; his going down to the
garden means that he truly possesses the beloved. Although she implicitly appealed for help to
the Daughters in 5:8* (if you find him), now she indicates the depths of their mutual presence
and union.
The womans triumphant cry, my lover has gone down to his garden, is expanded by
metaphors of browsing and gathering lilies. This symbolic language is reflected in 4:16* and
5:1*, the conclusion of the garden passage, and also in 6:11* and 7:12*[11*]. The activity in

23
Cf. Pope, 553554.
*
2
to gather lilies.
*
11
*
11
*
11
the garden is not that of horticulture but of love. Their union, despite the absences and searches,
always perdures.
3* The verse is a clear statement of mutual possession, and an unequivocal expression of the
womans claim that her lover was never really lost. The inversion of the first four words, in
contrast to 2:16*, does not seem to have any particular purpose, unless it is that the I is better
expressed at once and clearly, after the veiled allusion (garden) to herself in v 2*.
One can conclude that the function of the Daughters (5:9*; 6:1*) has been to provide the
woman with the opportunity of describing her lovers charms and affirming their mutual union.
According to the thrust of these events, the structure of 5:26:3* forms a unit. It should also be
noted that 5:1* and 6:13* have a certain correspondence: both speak of his going to the garden,
and both bring a section to an end.
Praise of the Womans Unique Beauty
4
*
M Beautiful are you, my friend, as Tirzah,

*
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
banners?
11
12
*

In a sudden appearance, the man addresses the woman in words that are very similar to 1:15* and 4:1*,
7* (cf. 2:10*, 13*). The relationship to 4:1* is the most striking, since the succeeding lines turn to the
lovely as Jerusalem,
awe-inspiring as visions!
5
*
Turn your eyes away from me,

topic of her eyes (4:1*; 6:5*). Because echoes of 4:13* appear in vv 47*, Gerleman (181) describes
this as an abbreviated variant of 4:1ff*., provided with a revised introduction.
It is a striking fact that G (), E (byn), and B (suavis) did not recognize a proper name in
(Tirzah), despite the parallelism with Jerusalem; they translate from the root meaning,
= pleasing. This has encouraged Pope (539) to propose verily pleasing for (asseverative ),
with the consequent deletion of as Jerusalem. Tirzah was the name of the capital of the Northern
Kingdom of Israel from Jeroboam to Omri (circa 920880 B.C.E.); cf. 1 Kgs 14:17*; 15:33*; 16:23*. The
claim has been made that these lines must date back approximately to this time, since Samaria soon
replaced Tirzah as the capital. The argument is not conclusive; indeed, it could be that at a later period
the mention of Samaria might be deliberately avoided. Moreover, one can recognize a play on the word
Tirzah, which derives from the root , meaning pleasing. Tirzah is probably to be identified with
modern tell el-fra; cf. Roland de Vaux, Chronique archologique: Tell el-Frah, RB 67 (1960) 245
247.
Jerusalem is called lovely in Jer 6:2* ( , a Nebenform of ), and in Lam 2:15* it is described
as the all beautiful city, the joy of the whole earth; cf. Ps 48:3*.
The masculine form of (awe-inspiring) is used in Hab 1:7* of the fearsome Chaldeans (Neo-
Babylonians); the noun ( ) is associated with war (Deut 32:25*), and with theophany (Gen 15:12*).
This is clearly a bold description of the woman, in view of the tenderness which is elsewhere expressed.
The context (v 5*) supports the disquieting effect which the sight of the woman produces. It is simply
too convenient to treat the entire phrase as an addition from v 10*, where it is more in context (a
solution urged by Loretz, 38, n. 2).
(visions) is the Nipal feminine plural participle of . This is often understood as a verb
derived from the noun (banner); hence the translation bannered troops (NEB) or bannered
hosts (NJV). As noted at 2:4*, this meaning is very uncertain. The ancient versions attributed a military
sense to : G , drawn up; B castrorum acies ordinata, camps in battle array. As in
the case of 2:4*, another meaning can be conjectured from the Akkadian daglu, to look. Things
seen(feminine for neuter) would then be the general sense. Hence trophies (Pope, 560562) and,
due to the mention of the sun and moon in the context, starry heavens (NEB) and heavenly bodies
(Rudolph, 162) have been suggested as specific connotations of the term.
*

for they disturb me.
that stream down from Gilead.
6
*
Your teeth like a flock of ewes
that come up from the washing,
All of them in pairs
7
*
behind your veil.
8
*
Sixty are the queens,
eighty the concubines,
and maidens without number
9
*
Unique is my dove, my perfect one!

The masculine pronoun, , refers back to eyes, which are feminine; the fluctuation of gender occurs
throughout the Song; cf. in 6:8*, and the verbs in 6:9b*. The word (disturb me) was
interpreted by G, E, and B in the sense of fly away, due perhaps to the mans disappearance in chapter
5 (cf. 4:9*). The root is associated by some with Arabic rahaba, to fear (cf. L. Kopf, Arabische Etymo
logien und Parallelen zum Bibelwrterbuch, VT 9 [1959] 273276); but the use of the Qal form in Isa
3:5* and Prov 6:3* suggests oppress or assault. The Hipil of occurs elsewhere only in Ps
138:3*, where it refers to divine action in the of the psalmist: God effects strength ( ) in him.
Except for an insignificant variant (omission of , mount), v 5b* is a repetition of 4:1b*.
*
This is another repetition; 4:2* appears with a minor variant. The (shorn) of 4:2* are
explicitly identified here as (ewes).
*
A repetition of 4:3b*.
*
The masculine pronoun, , is used as the copula with the feminine plural noun (queens).
Grammarians justify this as a rarity (GHB 149c); less likely is the correlation with the Ugaritic hm, a
particle of emphasis.
*

(unique, one) is in emphatic position and an alliteration (cf. 5:2*) follows. The point is the
uniqueness of the woman, not that she is an only child (against NEB).
The root means pure, which has developed into chosen (1 Chr 7:40*) and purified or
shining (as it can be rendered in 6:10*). The stylistic repetition of the mother is reminiscent of 3:4*.
The unique one of her mother,
the chosen of the one who bore her.
When women see her, they praise her;
queens and concubines, they bless her:
10
*
Pure as the sun,
11
*
W To the nut-garden I came down,
to see the fresh growth of the valley,
To see if the vines were budding,
if the pomegranates were in blossom.

The women are (literally daughters), but there is no reason to identify them specifically with
the Daughters of Jerusalem. They seem to be identical with the (maidens) of v 8*, and
members of the royal harem, as the parallelism with (queens) indicates. In 2:23* daughters
and sons indicate the whole range of females and males with whom the woman and man are
compared.
*

This question appears in 3:6* and 8:5*; here it is certain that the reference is to a female, in contrast to
3:6*.
(comes forth) means literally looks out, as from a mountain or from heaven (Ps 14:2*),
or from a window (Judg 5:28*). The context, however, suggests the picture of the rising of the dawn or
the sun; hence the womans beauty rises, or comes forth. In Sir 26:16* a womans beauty is compared
to the sun rising in the Lords heavens.
The words rendered moon and sun are ] [ (the white) and ] [ (the hot), a
poetic usage that is found also in Isa 24:23*; 30:26*.
For the phrase (awe-inspiring as visions), see the remarks on 6:4*.
*
(nut-garden) is a hapax and of uncertain origin (cf. Pope, 574579, for an extended discussion;
and also Wagner, Aramaismen, 18). The association of the nut-garden with the valley is not clear. The
garden could hardly include a valley. It must be a vantage point from which to see the valley in bloom,
which occurs in the Spring as a result of the winter rains. But perhaps we are simply confronted with a
profusion of images (garden, valley, vines, pomegranates) that have no spatial connection. There is no
need to interpret (with Ricciotti *256+ and Rudolph *166+) in the light of an Arabic root as palm-
tree. Echoes of this verse appear in 7:13*[12*]; G has added (there I
will give you my breasts) from v 13b*.
12
*
Before I knew it,
my heart made me
the blessed one of the princes people.
Interpretation

*

This is a famous crux interpretum; the proper reading has never been successfully discovered. M is
certainly corrupt, and is hardly susceptible of translation. A literal rendering might be: I did not know;
my soul/life set me; chariots of Ammi-nadib. The ancient versions provide no help. G reads
(my soul did not know; it made me chariots of Aminadab); E is
similar, but represents the final phrase as chariots of the people that is prepared *dmyb+; B has
nescivi anima mea conturbavit me propter quadrigas Aminadab (I did not know; my soul disturbed me
[reading for ] because of the chariots of Aminadab). It appears that all had basically the
same corrupt text found in M. None of the many emendations proposed by scholars is really convincing.
(See the discussion in Pope, 584592). With full justification this verse might be left untranslated.
Instead, an emendation (suggested by Kuhn [40, 42] and underlying the NAB rendering) is adopted here:
(Pual feminine singular participle of , blessed one; cf. Deut 33:13*) for M
(chariots); cf. BH
3
, 1208, n. b to 6:12*. (NAB renders the clause the blessed one of my kinswomen.
The relevant textual note *Confraternity edition, Vol. 3 (Paterson, New Jersey: St. Anthony Guild,
1955) 689] posits for M , suggesting that the latter involves dittography of
7:2*[1*]. But this further departure from the consonantal text of M seems unnecessary as well as
textually unwarranted.) One may find an echo here of the praise of the woman in 6:9*; cf. also the
blessing of Jael in Judg 5:24*: the blessed one of my people.
(before I knew it) is literally I did not know, which is to be understood as an almost
parenthetical remark, equivalent to unawares or suddenly.
(my heart made me) is literally my soul placed me. The verb is often used
idiomatically to express making a thing (first object) into something else (second object, sometimes
introduced with a preposition); e.g., Gen 21:13*, 18*; Isa 28:17*. One cannot properly translate M as
placed me on without a preposition (although Pope *586+ maintains that chariots is an adverbial
accusative); hence made me seems indicated. Another problem lies in the reference to Ammi-nadib,
who like Satan in the Cantico Espiritual of San Juan de la Cruz (where he is called Aminadab), has
resisted all efforts at solution. If the phrase is not a proper name, it can be rendered the people of (the)
prince, with containing the paragogic (so Ginsburg; cf. GHB 931). Pope (589590) accepts this
interpretation of the final yod and reads as the preposition with, yielding (with *the+
prince). For a discussion of old and new translations and interpretations, see Raymond Tournay, Les
chariots dAminadab (Cant. vi 12): Isral, peuple thophore, VT 9 (1959) 288309, esp. 288292
(reprinted in Raymond Tournay, tudes, 7381).
A new section clearly opens at 6:4* when the man addresses the woman. He had been the object
of her futile search in the previous section, but now he speaks as if appearing out of nowhere. His
words of admiration and boasting end at v 10. The connection of vv 1112* with his address is
uncertain. If, as understood in this translation, the woman now speaks, she seems to remind him
of a previous tryst.
There are mixed genres in vv 410*. The man begins with a song of admiration (vv 45a*),
and enters into a waf (vv 5b7*, repeating lines from 4:13*). There is no obvious explanation

*
4
*
11
12
*
4
5
*
5
6
7
*
1
of the repetition; it serves to develop the praise of the womans beauty that opens 6:4*. He
concludes with a song of admiration that boasts of her incomparability and excellence. The genre
of the obscure vv 1112* seems to be the description of an experience.
4* The woman is addressed by the man, who compliments her on her beauty in the style of
1:15* and 4:1*, 7*. The comparison of a woman to a city gives trouble to many commentators.
1

However, it should be recalled that cities are typically personified as females (Isa 60:112*;

2
3
1
Pope, 558559.
*
1
Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
2
For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
3
Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
4
Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come
from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses arms.
5
Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice,because the abundance of the sea
shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.
6
A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba
shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.
7
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you; they shall
be acceptable on my altar, and I will glorify my glorious house.
8
Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows?
9
For the coastlands shall wait for me, the ships of Tarshish first, to bring your children from far away,
their silver and gold with them, for the name of the Lord your God, and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has glorified you.
10
Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you; for in my wrath I struck you
down, but in my favor I have had mercy on you.
Ezek 23:45*; etc.), which seems sufficient to justify the simile here. Not only is the woman
compared to cities, but her appearance is described as inspiring fear or awe. This line should not
be expunged as a gloss influenced by v 10b*. The lover feels the dangerous and threatening
aspect of the woman. This is a well known topos in love literature.
The imagery may have mythological overtones, suggesting goddesses who inspire terror.
2
A
prime candidate among the latter is Anat, the Ugaritic goddess of love and war, with whom
Inanna, Ishtar, Isis, and others are also to be associated. It is reasonable to conclude that such a
model has influenced the growth of the theme of the dangerous woman. This does not mean,
however, that the poem in 6:410* refers to the goddess; it is simply that the love language may
have been influenced by this concept of deity. It is perhaps difficult for the modern to hold
together the traits of love and war in the beloved, but this was apparently no problem to the
ancient. The description in v 4* is meant as a compliment to the woman and as testimony to the

11
Your gates shall always be open; day and night they shall not be shut, so that nations shall bring you
their wealth, with their kings led in procession.
12
For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; those nations shall be utterly laid
waste.
Isaiah 60:112 (NRSV)
*
4
Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they
bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
5
Oholah played the whore while she was mine; she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors
Ezekiel 23:45 (NRSV)
*
10
banners?
2
Pope, 560563. A particular value of the erudite commentary of Marvin Pope is that he has supplied
the mythological background to Hebrew love poetry. His treatment demonstrates the background of the
sentiments in 4:9* and 6:5*. However, the myth is background only: the intent of the poet is something
quite different. One can compare the use of the myth of hll ben aar (morning star, son of dawn)
in Isa 14 to describe the fall of the king of Babylon. The intent, or level of meaning, of the poet deals
with the king of Babylon, not the mythical figure. The extent to which the background story has been
demythologized in the Song is very difficult to determine. However, the obvious emphasis on the
attraction and love which the man and the woman feel for each other in the Song suggest that the myth
has been considerably tamed.
attractive but frightening mystery which the male finds in her. The poet obviously sees no
conflict between attraction and fear; they can coexist. Both 4:12* and 6:45* are alike in that
they begin with a compliment concerning the womans beauty and end with a remark about her
hair. Within this envelope, her eyes are characterized as doves (4:1*), and also seen as upsetting.
The mystery and danger of the womans eyes remain, paradoxically, what the man wishes to
experience.
5a* The theme of fear instilled by the woman is continued in v 5*. The power of her eyes over
the man has already been expressed in 4:9*. Now he pleads that she avert her gaze from him
because of the tumult he feels. But no matter how disturbing be the effect of her eyes upon him,
he still yearns for her, to gaze upon her, as the entire Song makes evident.
5b* See the commentary on 4:1.
67* See the commentary on 4:13*. The transition in v 5b* to the genre of waf, and in
practically the same words found in chapter 4, is sudden and inexplicable, save as a continuation
of the praise in 6:4*.
8* After the digression concerning the physical charms of the woman, the man begins what
Horst has called a boasting song (vv 810*).
3
The royal background is noteworthy. The

*
1
2
*
6
7
*
1
*
8
woman is contrasted with the royal harem, which can be explained from the king fiction which
appears elsewhere in the Song (cf. 1:4*, 12*).
The harem is classified on three levels: queens concubines maidens. The official
status of the concubine was below that of the formal wife or queen.
4
The ever increasing number
is a stylistic device that serves to underline the claim made for the beloved in v 9*: Sixty
eighty represents three score four score; the woman is being compared to an unlimited
number.
5

9* After the mention of the high numbers in v 8*, the repeated use of aat (unique, one)
underscores how incomparable and superior this woman is. Such a tribute is a commonplace in
love poetry. In the Egyptian love poems, for example, the woman boasts that the man has made
her as first of the girls, and the man boasts similarly: She turns the head of every man, all
captivated at the sight of her; everyone who embraces her rejoices, for he has become the most
successful of lovers. When she comes forth, anyone can see that there is none like that One.
6

The various classes of royal consorts mentioned in v 8* are represented as praising the mans
beloved; the point is that all women, including especially the foremost, acknowledge her
superiority.
10* This verse is put in quotations to indicate that it is the exclamation uttered by the women
designated in the preceding verse. It is the sort of question that would be asked as a beautiful
woman approaches the speakers.
Comparison to the dawn, moon, and sun suggests the radiant beauty of the woman. These
metaphors are common coin to describe female beauty.
7
The rendering visions for nidglt is
uncertain, but in the present context the term may refer to celestial phenomena, such as stars.
8

3
Horst, Formen, 183.
4
Cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 117, where it is noted that Cant 6:8* is the only place in the
Old Testament that uses the term queen (malk; plural mlkt) to refer to Israelite or Judaean royal
consort(s).
5
The numerical pattern of sixty/eighty/unlimited is not to be correlated with 1 Kgs 11:3* (Solomons
harem). Gordis (94) thinks that 60 and 80, which are three and four score, respectively, represent the
ascending numeration common in Biblical and Semitic poetry for designating a large and indefinite
quantity. The progression seventy/eighty is well attested in Ugaritic. Cf. Albright, Archaic Survivals,
1; and the discussion in Pope, 567568.
6
Simpson, Literature, 305, 316.
7

See, e.g., the first stanza of the Egyptian Songs of Extreme Happiness (Simpson, Literature, 315316):
One, the lady love without duplicate,
more perfect than the world,
see, she is like the star rising
11* Verses 1112* represent a sudden break with the preceding song of admiration. It is
difficult to determine who is the speaker. Since the woman is the garden to which the man comes
in 5:1*, the verse might be attributed to him. On the other hand, the blooming of the vine and
blossoming of the pomegranates are repeated in an invitation uttered by the woman in 7:13*. The
difficulty is compounded by the obscurity of v 12*. One may draw a parallel with chapter 7,
where the mans resolve to be united with the woman follows a song of admiration (7:89[78]*,
after 7:27*[16*]). So also, 6:1112* might represent his coming to the woman after the praise

at the start of an auspicious year.

When she comes forth, anyone can see that there is none like that one.
8
See the Notes to 6:4*, p. 175 above.
*
12
*
12
*
7
8
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
of her beauty in the previous verses. However, v 11* can also be understood as spoken by the
woman who recalls a former tryst with the man. She gives a specific purpose to her visit to the
garden: to see if the flowers are in bloom, etc. In the language of the Song, this sign is associated
with love. The man spoke of the awakening of nature in the famous Spring song of 2:1113*,
and it has been pointed out that phrases of 6:11* are repeated in 7:13* (spoken by the woman).
The visit to the garden may be intended as a real visit to a real garden by the woman; the
language about the blossoms would then suggest that the purpose is a rendezvous with the lover.
In this view, the woman would also speak the lines in v 12*.
9

12* The Notes indicate how problematical any rendering of this verse must be. The translation
suggests that v 12* completes a reminiscence on the part of the woman: a visit to the nut-garden,
where she had a rendezvous with the man, and where she fell suddenly and completely in love,
being made the blessed one of my people (conjectural emendation).

4
5
tresses.
6
*
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
9
For possible mythological associations of the nut, and also the fertility background to the b (fresh
growth) and the naal (valley), see Pope, 574583.
The Union of Lovers
The Song of Songs 7:1[6:13]8:4*

*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
1
7:1[6:13]
*
(?) Turn, turn, O Shulammite;

*

(turn) can mean: *do it+ again or return. It is hardly the word that would serve as an
invitation to dance. Rather, the woman is asked to face the speaker(s).
has not been explained with any certainty. It is probably an epithet, not a proper name,
with the definite article indicating the vocative (GHG 126e). The following are among the solutions that
have been proposed: 1) The name goes back to ulmntu, a goddess of love and war known from
Mesopotamian sources (cf. William F. Albright, The Syro-Mesopotamian God ulmn-Emn and
Related Figures, AfO 7 [19311932] 164169; and AfO, Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: A Historical
Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths [Garden City: Doubleday, 1968]150). 2) The term is to be understood
as a feminine gentilic, equivalent to Shunammite, designating a woman of Shunem, a town in the
eastern part of the Esdraelon plain (e.g., Josh 19:18*; 1 Sam 28:4*). Hence association has often been
made with Abishag, the beautiful Shunammite woman of 1 Kgs 1:3*, 15*; 2:1722* (cf. Budde, 36;
Delitzsch, 119120; Ringgren, 31). While an interchange of I and nin these epithets is
unobjectionable, the proposed equation cannot claim support from the ancient versions (G
A
etc.
; G
B
; B Sulamitis); cf. Rudolph, 170. 3) The word is derived from Solomon
and/or (peace), and hence the sense is something like the Solomoness (H. H. Rowley, The
Meaning of the Shulammite, AJSL 56 [1939] 8491) or the peaceful one (Robert, 250; cf. Fox, 157
158). For an extended review of interpretations given to the term, cf. Pope, 596600.
The identity of the speakers in v 1a* is also uncertain. One might infer that they are males, in view of
the gender used in the reply in v 1b*; so NEB reads companios of the bridegroom. Bur there have
been other insances where the masculine plural seems to be used in a general sense (2:5*, 15*). Hence
the command has been attributed to the Daughters of Jerusalem.
The reply to the summons is itself a question, Why ? This should be attributed to the
Shulammite; it is less likely that it is an explanatory intervention by the man (so NEB). Although G, E, and
B translate (why) as the accusative pronoun what, this can be taken as the adverbial accusative
(GHB 144e).
M
L
exhibits , but in other manuscripts the initial preposition is (in); cf. .
Both G ) and E (yk dwt) support M
L
, and understand the preposition as comparative; so also,
implicitly, B (nisi choros). Pope (605) remarks that The k- may also be taken as having temporal
meaning, on the occasion of the dance, i.e., as she dances. However, the preposition can convey simple
turn, turn, that we may gaze upon you!
W Why do you gaze upon the Shulammite
as upon the dance of the two camps?
2[7:1]
*
M How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O noble daughter!

comparison: Why do you gaze upon the Shulammite (as you would gaze upon)? There is no
grammatical difficulty in the omission of (notice the in v 1a*); see GHB 133h. Cf. Roland E.
Murphy, Dance and Death in the Song of Songs, Love and Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in
Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford, Conn.: Four Quarters, 1987)
117119.
There has been much discussion of the root of (, turn, dance; or , celebrate,
sing), but dance is the generally accepted interpretation. Cf. the summary of opinions in Pope, 601
603. Mayer I. Gruber (Ten Dance-Derived Expressions in the Hebrew Bible, Bib 62 (1981) 341345)
derives from /, perform a whirling dance; he points out that the term comes to denote
joy (Ps 30:12*) and is also associated with safe return from battle (Judg 11:34*) and with accompanying
song (l Sam 18:67*; 12:12*; 29:5*). Gruber suggests that the dance of the two camps celebrated a
military victory and translates the crucial line in 7:1* as follows (343): What, (she asks), will you see in
the Shulamite? (They answer), Of course, the dance of the two camps. And the dance begins.
could refer to the well-known place, Mahanaim, in the Transjordan near the Jabbok (2 Sam
17:24*); but evidence is lacking to associate a particular dance with the site (cf. Delitzsch, 120121;
Loretz, 42). The term is dual in form, literally meaning the two camps; it has been interpreted by many
commentators as referring to the manner in which the dance was presented: the grouping of the
spectators, men and women, about the dancer (cf. NEB: as she moves between the lines of dancers!).
All this is very hypothetical; the nature of the dance of the two camps remains unknown.
*

The precise nuance of (noble, prince) is disputed; it can refer to her generous character,
but more likely it is a compliment in keeping with the king fiction in the Song. If the royal harem praises
her (6:910*), she deserves royal distinction. There may be some association between here and in
the enigmatic 6:12*, at least as a catch word.
(curves) is hapax, although the word appears in 5:6* in the sense of turn; it could
designate the movement, or the actual contour, of the thigh.
(rings) is the plural of /; in Prov 25:12* and Hos 2:12* this root is associated with
(ring). G understood it to be a necklace (). (artist) is hapax, but the meaning is
not in doubt (cf. Wagner, Aramaismen, 26).
The curves of your thighs, like rings,
the handiwork of an artist.
3
*

*

(rendered here as your valley) is used in Ezek 16:4* ( ) for the umbilical cord, and hence
the translation navel or the like has been widely accepted for here also; so already G (, B
(umbilicus), and E (rky). In defending this interpretation, Nolli (131) and Gerleman (6372, esp. 70) call
attention to the standards of Egyptian artistic taste (cf. Keel, 214215). But unless one accepts other
instances of the influence of Egyptian art on the waf, as Gerleman does, the argument is not very
convincing. Moreover, the sequence in which appears does not suggest the womans navel; it
occurs between references to her thighs and belly. Hence many commentators have suggested a
relationship to Arabic sirr, meaning secret, and then pudenda or vulva: e.g., Ricciotti, 264;
Wrthwein, 62; Pope, 617618. (Cf. Ernst Vogt, Einige hebrische Wortbedeutungen, Bib 48 [1967]
6972, who argues that must mean Schoss; similarly, e.g., Miller, 63: Ringgren, 28.) But this has
philological difficulties; one cannot simply assume a like development from secret in Hebrew. The
Arabic word surr matches the Hebrew; it means umbilical cord, navel, or valley. Doubtless,
valley is an extension of the first meaning, navel. In 7:3*, valley preserves something of the
original meaning of ; and also provides a term that fits better into the context. In the third stanza of
In praise of his Mistris, Thomas Carew, the seventeenth-century English poet, used valley in just this
sense:
Hills of Milk with Azure mixd
Swell beneath,
Waving sweetly, yet still fixd
While she doth breath.
From those hills descends a valley
Where all fall, that dare to dally.
(Rhodes Dunlap, ed., The Poems of Thomas Carew [Oxford: Clarendon, 1949] 122.) The translation
adopts this rendering as a metaphor for the euphemism and double meaning that seem intended.
(bowl) is used elsewhere in the Bible only in Exod 24:6*, to describe the container for the
blood to be poured out, and in Isa 22:24*, where it is a generic term to include everything from cups to
flagons. The bowl is described by the term (with the article, oddly), which is a hapax. G rendered
it (worked in relief ) and B has tornatilis (turned). The sense of the comparison is probably
4
*
Your breasts like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.
5
*
Your neck like a tower of ivory;

not the size but the shape of the bowl (round or the like). What it holds is . This is also hapax, and
seems to be an Aramaism for Hebrew , mixed wine, found only in Ps 75:9*; the verb is
attested in the sense of mix (e.g., Isa 19:14*; Ps 102:10*). (Cf. Wagner, Aramaismen, 7374.) The
mixture could be wine and water, or wine and spices. with the imperfect (not to lack) can
designate an emphatic denial (GHB 144k) or even a prohibition.
The sense of the comparison of the womans abdomen ( *your belly+) to (a
heap of wheat) is obscure; shape or color could be meant (Delitzsch, 125). Some commentators (e.g.,
Ricciotti, 265; and Nolli, 132) interpret the likeness as a symbol of fertility.
(surrounded) is the Qal feminine singular passive participle of ; it is possibly an
Aramaism (cf. Wagner, Aramaismen, 86). There is no other reference in ancient sources to surrounding
wheat with lilies. Perhaps the metaphor is prompted by a garment or decoration worn by the woman
(cf. Pope, 624; and Keel, 216217).
*
This is a repetition of 4:5*, except that browsing among the lilies is omitted, probably because there
was question of lilies at the end of the preceding verse (Robert, 261). E does attest the phrase here.
*

In 4:4*, the womans (neck) was compared to Davids tower; here it is likened to
(a tower of ivory), about which nothing is otherwise known (although ivory inlay was used for
decoration [cf. Am 6:4*]). This description stands as an isolated line (v 5a*), in contrast to the poems
prevailing pattern of bicola. Thus there is reason to suspect that a parallel colon has been lost or
misplaced (so, e.g., Robert, 262; Wrthwein, 62; Loretz, 42; cf. Lys, 262). To fill the ostensible gap, Nolli
(132133) transposes to this place v 6aa* (On you, your head is like Carmel). Other, more hypothetical
solutions include reconstructing a colon on the basis of 5:15ab: (set in sockets of
porphyry); cf. BHS, 1333, n. a to 7:5*.
(pools in Heshbon) is to be understood as metaphor, not simile, despite the
like found in G and B. The comparison of eyes to doves has been made by both the man and the
woman (4:1*; 5:12*). This verse is reminiscent of 5:12* where the doves are associated with watera
natural image, since water refracts light. Heshbon is the famous biblical city (cf. Num 21:2630*),
located about twelve kilometers north of Madaba.
your eyes, pools in Heshbon
by the gate of Bath-rabbim.
Your nose like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.
6
*
On you, your head is like Carmel,
and the hair of your head, like purple
a king is caught in tresses.
7
*
How beautiful, and how pleasing,

literally means daughter of many and was so translated by both G ( )
and B (filiae multitudinis). But the construction is parallel to Heshbon and should be kept as a proper
name, although the site cannot be identified.
As Robert (264) points out, (your nose) cannot be face, since the form is singular, not dual.
But this hyperbole about the nose has been questioned by commentators.
Nothing is known about (tower of Lebanon), but it presumably means a towering
mountain. Because it faces ( ) Damascus, some commentators (e.g., Ricciotti, 266; and Robert,
265) speculate that Mount Hermon is meant.
*

The comparison of the womans (head) to Carmel, the famous mountain range that juts into the
Mediterranean near Haifa, would suggest stateliness. Because of the parallelism with hair which
follows, commentators mention the luxuriant growth on Carmel. But Pope (629) points out the
possibility of a play on the word Carmel and the color (purple or crimson) of the womans
hair.
(hair) derives from (hang) and is found elsewhere only in Isa 38:12*, where it
designates the thread of the loom. The comparison to purple indicates that her hair is dyed.
Some commentators (e.g., Gerleman, 194) follow the lead of , E, and B and join (king)
with (*royal+ purple). But this is not necessary; the reference to the king fits well with the king
fiction which has already been noted.
The translation of (cf. also 1:17*) as tresses is doubtful. The root means run in
Aramaic and Syriac, and in Gen 30:38*, 41* means watering trough. Both B (canalibus) and G
() suggest the meaning courses. The translation tresses rests on the idea that her wavy
hair evokes the image of running water (cf. also 4:1*); for another interpretation, see Eugenio Zolli, In
Margine al Cantico dei Cantici, Bib 21 (1940) 273282, esp. 276.
*

O loved one, delightful daughter!
8
*
Your very stature is like a palm tree,
and your breasts, clusters.
9
*
I said, I will climb the palm tree,
I will take hold of its branches;
Let your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
and the fragrance of your breath like apples;
10
*
Your mouth like the best wine.

The compliment to her beauty takes up terms (, ) which the woman used of the man in 1:16*.
(loved one) is literally love. The abstract can be used for the concrete; it is also possible
to vocalize the word as the passive participle, .
Delightful daughter rests upon a correction of M, which reads (with delights; so NJV,
with all its rapture). However, it seems better to recognize haplography here and read ,
O daughter of delight(s) (with the support of E and ).
*

(your very stature) is literally this your stature; cf. GHB 143f for the adjectival use of
the demonstrative pronoun.
(clusters) normally designates clusters of grapes (as explicitly in v 9*). But here it must
mean the date clusters of the palm tree (cf. also 1:14*).
*

(its branches) is hapax, but is to be related to Akkadian sissinnu, the upper branches of the
date palm. It probably designates the fruit along with the branch (Robert, 272). () and E
(swbwhy) support the translation branches.
(breath) normally means nostrils or nose (cf. v 5*); it designates the organ for breathing (root,
). Both Mitchell Dahood (Canticle 7, 9 and UT 52, 61. A Question of Method, Bib 57 [1976] 109
110) and Pope (636) cite the Ugaritic Birth of the Gracious Gods (CTA 23[= UT 52].61), in which the
gods are said to suck bap dd, on the nipple of the breast. Hence Dahood reads nipple, but Pope,
understanding as an aperture, takes it to mean vulva in 7:9*.
*

(mouth) is literally palate (cf. 5:16*); kisses are meant.
W Flowing smoothly for my lover,
spreading over my lips and my teeth.
11
*
I am my lovers,
and towards me is his desire.
12
*
Come, my lover, let us away to the field;

As vocalized in M, (like the best wine) is literally like the wine of the good, an
expression of the superlative. The mans statement of his desires ends abruptly at this point, unless one
rewrites the text by omitting (with Pope [639] and the RSV) or changing it to (as do Budde
[40] and Miller [66]); then the entire verse is spoken by the man. The translation adopted here follows
M. In a sudden transition, the woman continues in the words that follow, returning the compliment, a
device that has occurred before (1:1516*; 4:16b*).
The rendering of as smoothly can be justified from Prov 23:31*; cf. Gordis (97) for
another, less likely, interpretation.
(spreading) is hapax; it is probably to be derived from meaning flow (rather than
, which seems to mean murmur; cf. M ruminandum).
There is no evidence that it is a transitive verb, so perhaps the final in should be attached to
or duplicated before the next word as preposition (over); cf. the ancient versions, and Rudolph, 174.
M is rendered literally the lips of sleepers in NJV (with a note that the meaning is
uncertain). No convincing explanation of the phrase has been given. Delitzsch (132) understands this as
a reference to talking in ones sleep under the influence of good wine. For Pope (641), the sleepers are
the dead whose lips move ( ) in the grave; he suggests that the phrase in context alludes to
libations offered to ancestors in a common funerary meal. Robert (274275) regards (sleepers)
as the plural of generalization, designating the woman (as in 5:2*, ); thus, the verse expresses the
reciprocity of love (symbolized by wine), which goes to the man but is returned upon the lips of the
sleeping woman.
The basic question is, who are the sleepers? It seems arbitrary to identify these with the lovers, yet
they cannot (against Pope) reasonably be identified with anyone else. It seems better to emend the text,
reading ][ (my lips and my teeth) with the support of G, E, and B, as well as the majority
of commentators. The only consonantal change is from to (and these are frequently confused)
before ; the final may be regarded as enclitic.
*
(desire) has sexual connotation; cf. Gen 3:15*, where it refers to the womans desire.
let us spend the night in the villages.
13
*
14
*
The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
and at our door are all choice fruits;
New with the old,
my lover, have I stored up for you.
8
1
*
Would that you were my brother,
nursed at my mothers breasts!
Were I to find you in public,
I would kiss you,
and no one would despise me.
2
*
I would lead you, bring you,

*
can mean either villages (from the singular
1
, or
*
[so the ancient versions and a
majority of commentators+) or (bushes of) henna (from
3
[so Rudolph (175), Pope (645), and
others]).
*
The mention of vines and pomegranates seems to be a deliberate echo of 6:11*.
*

The Mediterranean mandrake plant served as an aphrodisiac (note the similarity between the name of
the plants, , and , love) and is associated with fertility; see Gen 30:1415*, and also
CTA 3 (= UT nt).3.12. Cf. Keel, 235237, 239.
(our door) is literally our doors, a plural of generalization (GHB 136j). The broad use of
our is characteristic; cf. 1:16*; 2:9*. In context, the door is probably to be associated with the house
in 8:2*.
*

is literally like a brother to me. The preposition like seems superfluous and is not reflected
in G and B; it is possibly dittography of the preceding pronominal suffix (). Gordis (98) understands it as
the asseverative (indeed). (meet) evokes the search of 3:14* and 5:68*, which leads the
woman into the streets (3:2*).
(despise) serves as a catchword with 8:7*.
*

to my mothers house
(where) you would teach me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
my pomegranate juice.
3
*
his right hand embraces me.
4
*
until it be ready!
Interpretation
Because of the uncertainty of the text in 6:12*, it is almost imperative to recognize that a new
section begins at 7:1*. Here the identity of the speaker(s) is left vague. The waf in vv 27* is

Other examples of asyndetic style (lead you, bring you) are found in 2:11* and 5:6*.
in M is ambiguous. In context, it could also be rendered (the house of my mother) who
taught me (L. Krinetzki, 232), or where you would teach me to give you to drink, or were you to
teach me, I would give you to drink (Gerleman, 208). There is a play on ; in v 1* it means I
would kiss you (), and in v 2*, I would give you to drink ().
*

Many commentators emend the text in the light of some support from the ancient versions. Instead of
, G and E: reflect the final clause of 3:4* (cf 6:9*; 8:5*): to the chamber of the one who
conceived me. The omission of in would yield (who bore me); see the comments
of Kuhn (5051), Rudolph (178), Pope (658659), and Wrthwein (66).
In M, stands in apposition to (wine). (spiced) means to mix or blend with
perfume.
There is no reason to emend M in order to read the plural pomegranates; the suffix my
affects the genitival phrase, my pomegranate juice.
*
M here varies slightly from the wording of 2:7* and 3:5*; the mention of the gazelles and hinds is
omitted (although some ancient versions preserve it). The of negation replaces (cf. GHB 144h;
and HSyn 128, 428). The omission of the reference to the gazelles and hinds of the fields is
appropriate to the change from adjuration to prohibition, since there is no place in the prohibition for
reference to the objects by which an adjuration is made (Pope, 661).
*
13
spoken by an individual, whether the leader of an unidentified group (v 1*) or the man. It is
certainly the man who continues in vv 810* with an expression of yearning. He is answered by
the woman in 7:108:3*.
This section contains several literary genres that can be tied together by the sequence of the
dialogue. A waf is found in 7:27*; in vv 810 aa, the man expresses his yearning for union
with the woman, and she replies in vv 10ab11; she continues with an invitation and a promise to
him in 7:128:2*, and a statement of mutual possession and an adjuration (8:34*).

*
7
8
9
*
9
10
11
12
13
1
2
3
*
11
The setting of 7:17* is usually considered to be a dance. But there are difficulties with this
interpretation. In 7:1a* an unidentified group issues a command to the Shulammite to (re)turn
(b). There is nothing specified that she can turn or return from; the context suggests that she is
to turn around so that the speakers may gaze upon her beauty. Her reply in v 1b* does mention
the dance of the two camps, or the manyim-dance. However, she uses this as a term of
comparison; she does not necessarily refer to herself as performing in a dance. With more
imagination than truth, the so-called sword dance has been read into this scene, on the basis of

12
13
1
2
*
13
1
of a master hand.
2
lilies.
3
4
5
tresses.
6
modern Near Eastern customs.
1
A characteristic waf, this lime proceeding from feet to head,
follows the puzzling v 1*.
The next section, vv 810aa, contains the mans yearning for physical union with the woman.
If the previous waf was spoken by him, these lines follow naturally upon his description of her
beauty. There is an unusual switch in the speakers in v 10*, when she replies to him and
continues in a relatively long declamation to 8:4*.
7:1*[6:13*] The purpose of the address to the woman, here called the Shulammite, is to
persuade her to face the group that is speaking.
Her reply (v 1b*) is in a rather teasing mood. She is hardly ignorant of the reason they wish
to look upon her. Both the question and the answer serve to introduce the following description
of her beauty. Why she compares herself to the dance of the two camps is not clear, since the
phrase refers to something unknown. In any case, she compares the interest of the onlookers to
the interest that such a dance would inspire. She does not say that she is dancing or intends to
dance.
In the context of v 1* it is possible to ascribe the waf that follows to the onlookers or to
their spokesperson. Elsewhere the waf is spoken by the man (4:17*; 8:57*), and hence it is
reasonable to attribute vv 27* to him.
2*[1*] The waf begins with the feet, in contrast to previous descriptions, and goes up to her
head. The woman is called noble daughter, in complimentary style, but there is apparently no

1
See the Introduction, pp. 39 and 59. Cf. also the discussion in Pope, 604.
*
13
*
5
6
7
*
1
of a master hand.
intent to suggest royalty in the proper sense. Any attempt to explain the appellation by reference
to Aminadab (6:12*) is to explain obscurum per obscurius.
2
The comparison of the womans
thighs to an ornament, such as a ring, is not obvious; perhaps the point is the roundness.
3*[2*] As indicated in the Notes, valley is meant as a euphemism for the pudenda. The
presence of mixed wine in this anatomical vessel has been understood as a reference to
fecundation, or even to love water.
3
But the line may merely be intended to convey the
richness of the comparison.
4

It must have been, and still is, common to see heaps of grain after the winnowing. Many
commentators attempt to find an indication of color in the comparison. But the description of the
belly may not be so much in the interest of beauty as of fertility. At least, the grain would
suggest this; it is a recognized symbol of female fertility. In practice, some kind of hedge could
have surrounded the grain. Here the lilies serve this purpose: this may be a reference to an
ornamental girdle she is wearing.
5

4*[3*] The description of the womans breasts repeats 4:5*, but there is no apparent reason
why browsing among the lilies should be omitted here (unless it is a gloss in 4:5?).

*
1
of a master hand.
2
Contra Gerleman, 192194.
*
2
lilies.
*
2
lilies.
3
Cf. Pope (620), who, however, adopts punch as his rendering of the hapax mezeg. Lys (255, 260)
translates the term as cocktail!
4
Gerleman (198) regards it as a witty remark (witzigen Einfall) that interrupts the description.
5
However, Gerleman (198) would regard the lilies as having merely stylistic effect, for emotionalnot
visualpurposes.
*
5*[4*] The four proper names (only Bath-rabbim is unknown) are used deliberately in this
short description of the womans neck, eyes, and nose. The comparison of the neck to a tower of
ivory echoes 4:4* (the tower of David), perhaps indicating color and smoothness. Whereas in
4:1* (cf. 5:12*) the eyes were doves, here they are compared to Heshbons pools (about which
nothing is known), perhaps for limpidity or brightness.
6
In Hebrew ayin means both eye and
water source; water is a natural reflector. The nose is compared to something that is simply
unknown, and unclear in itself: is it a tower built on Lebanon, or a formation of the terrain that
resembles a tower? Either is possible. From such an uncertain comparison one can hardly
conclude anything about her nose, although it is doubtless a compliment.
6*[5*] The comparison of the womans head to Carmel, the prominent mountain range
between the Mediterranean and the plain of Esdraelon, evokes majesty. Her hair is compared to
purple, apparently because it is dyed (the argmn being the purple dye that comes from the
murex shellfish).
In the final line the speaker departs from the waf to inject a personal note, if he is to be
identified with the lover or king. This is the only instance of such a personal reference in a
waf, and the line has been rejected by many commentators. The meaning of rhm is
uncertain; tresses is arrived at more from the context than from etymology.

3
*
4
6
In this connection, commentators refer to Ovid, Ars amatoria 2.721722 (J. H. Mozley, tr., Ovid, Vol. 2:
The Art of Love, and Other Poems [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University; London: William Heinemann,
2
1979] 114115): You will see her eyes shooting tremulous gleams, as the sun often glitters in clear
water (Aspicies oculos tremulo fulgore micantes, / Ut sol a liquida saepe refulget aqua).
*
5
tresses.
*
5
tresses.
7*[6*] It is better to regard this line as a conclusion of the preceding waf, with mah-yypt
serving as the inclusio to mah-yyp of v 2*. But recent commentators begin a new unit here,
opening with a general cry of admiration which quickly becomes an expression of the mans
desire for physical union with the woman.
7

8*[7*] The man begins by singing the praises of the womans figure, which he compares to a
palm-tree. Such a comparison is a common one in various cultures to suggest grace and
elegance,
8
and may have a bearing on the common Hebrew feminine name, Tamar (palm). In
context, the palm-tree metaphor is important, and is developed in v 9*.
The comparison of her breasts to clusters of dates (presumably two clusters are meant) is
unusual. Perhaps it is due to the rigid adherence to the metaphor of the palm with which be
began.
9*[8*] The importance of the palm metaphor is seen in the manner in which the man expresses
his resolve to have physical union: he will climb the palm. Now her breasts become grape
clusters which he will enjoy.
The fragrance of your breath would refer to the physical delight of kissing. The term
rendered breath (ap) usually designates the nostrils and is translated nose in G. The
reference is to the Egyptian nose-kiss, which involved more the sense of smell than of taste.
9

*
6
*
6
7
So Gerleman, 201; Rudolph, 173175; and Loretz, 44.
*
7
8
Cf. the Odyssey, 6.162169. Cf. also the illustration and discussion in Keel, 224230.
*
8
The precise nature of the tappa, usually identified as apple,
10
is disputed; this fragrant
fruit has already been associated with the lovers in 2:3*, 5*.
10*[9*] The mans address concludes with the comparison of her mouth to wine; he is
interrupted by the woman who continues the metaphora wine that flows smoothly for my
lover. While this interruption is sudden, the ancient versions support the understanding of M,
which should be retained. The woman affirms that her kisses, like wine, are tasty and full.
11*[10*] The formula of mutual possession (cf. 2:16*; 6:3*) is deliberately inverted. The
emphasis on sexual desire is paramount. In allusion to Gen 3:16*, the word tq, which
indicated the womans desire for her husband, is now used of his desire for her. This fits neatly
into the present context in which he has expressed his desire so vividly.
11

12*[11*] Most of the explicit invitations issued in the Song are made by the man (2:10*; 4:8*).
Here, and probably also in 4:16b*, the woman invites him into the fields for a tryst.
13*[12*] Let us be off early does not mean a second stage in their activity; the verb is
parallel to let us away (v 12*).
12
Reference to the blossoming of the vines and the blooming of

9
Cf. Hermann, Liebesdichtung, 9495. Gerleman (203) appropriately cites a line from an Egyptian love
poem collected by Hermann (Liebesdichtung, 94): it is the breath of your nose that keeps me alive.
10
Cf. John Trever, Apple, IDB 1 (A-D), 175176; and Fox, 107, who understands the fruit to be the
apricot.
*
10
*
16
Genesis 3:16 (NRSV)
11
In light of the contrast between Genesis and the Song, Phyllis Tribie (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality
[OBT 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978] 160) comments on Cant 7:11*: In Eden, the yearning of the
woman for harmony with her man continued after disobedience. Yet the man did not reciprocate;
instead, he ruled over her to destroy unity and pervert sexuality. Her desire became his dominion. But in
the Song, male power vanishes. His desire becomes her delight. Another consequence of disobedience is
thus redeemed through the recovery of mutuality in the garden of eroticism. Appropriately, the woman
sings the lyrics of this grace: I am my lovers and for me is his desire.
*
12
the pomegranates is a deliberate repetition of 6:11*. The association of the awakening of nature
with a love tryst is familiar from 2:1113*. At the same time, there is a clear undertone of
symbolism or double meaning: the woman is herself the garden where exotic plants grow (4:12
16*); she has called herself the vineyard (1:6*).
14*[13*] This verse continues the pastoral scene of the tryst that was evoked in v 13*. But the
scenery has become more symbolic of the woman herself, who is the choice fruits.
The scent of the mandrake is very penetrating. It was considered to be an aphrodisiac (cf.
Gen 30:1416*).
13

The reference to our door is rather sudden. In context, the man and woman have been out
in the fields (v 12*), so perhaps the door anticipates their return to the mothers house (8:2*).
But it is not clear why the fruits are at the door, which does not seem to be a normal place for
them.

12
So Gerleman, 207.
*
13
*
13
*
14
In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his
mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Please give me some of your sons mandrakes.
15
But she said to her, Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband? Would you take away
my sons mandrakes also? Rachel said, Then he may lie with you tonight for your sons mandrakes.
16
When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, You must
come in to me; for I have hired you with my sons mandrakes. So he lay with her that night.
13
For the history of the literary use of the mandrake, see Pope, 647650; cf. also the comments and
illustrations in Keel, 236239.
New with the old is best taken as an idiomatic expression to express a totality, all kinds
of.
14
It would not make much sense to take this literally (cf. Lev 26:10*), as if she had stored up
old fruits for him. The choice fruits recall the use of mgdm (which occurs elsewhere only
in Deut 33:13*, 16*) in 4:13*, 16*, where the woman herself is meant.
8:12* These verses are a song of yearning. The lines are tied together by imm (my
mother) and by the deft word-play eaqk (I would kiss you, v 1b*) and aqk (I
would give you to drink, v 2b*).

14

Gerleman (211) appropriately compares Deut 29:18*, the watered soil and the parched ground; cf.
also Matt 13:52*, new and old. He refers also to the Egyptian poem of the little sycamore in the
Songs of the Orchard (Simpson, Literature, 315):
These servants of yours
come with their stuffs,
bringing beer of every sort,
all kinds of kneaded dough for beer,
heady wine of yesterday and today,
all kinds of fruit for enjoyment.
Here yesterday and today connote totality, every sort of or the like.
*
10
You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new.
Leviticus 26:10 (NRSV)
*
13
And of Joseph he said: Blessed by the Lord be his land, with the choice gifts of heaven above, and of
the deep that lies beneath;
*
16
with the choice gifts of the earth and its fullness, and the favor of the one who dwells on Sinai.Let
these come on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among his brothers.
*
The woman fantasizes about her lover as a brother (of the same mothera point of
emphasis) whom she might kiss in public without having to meet the disapproval of others. The
dear implication is that public demonstration of affection, unless among members of the
immediate family, is contrary to social mores. Yet this remark is puzzling: the woman has not
betrayed any concern about social opinion previously, where it might have been a factor (3:14*;
5:68*; 7:1213*). More importantly, public demonstration of affection is accepted in Gen 26:8*
(Isaac and Rebekah); 29:11* (Jacob and Rachel); and Est 15:1215*(B). We are rather in the

1
2
*
6
7
8
*
11
12
*
8
When Isaac had been there a long time, King Abimelech of the Philistines looked out of a window and
saw him fondling his wife Rebekah.
Genesis 26:8 (NRSV)
*
11
Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and wept aloud.
dark as to what was or became socially acceptable in this matter. It seems best to prescind from
the social implications and accept the womans yearning as an intense desire for intimacy and
privacy which would allow for signs of tenderness. Rudolph has noted the charming lack of
logic in the desire that he might be her brother in order that she can act as more than a sister.
15

*
12
he embraced her, and said, Speak to me.
13
She said to him, I saw you, my lord, like an angel of God, and my heart was shaken with fear at your
glory.
14
For you are wonderful, my lord, and your countenance is full of grace.
15
And while she was speaking, she fainted and fell.
Additions to Esther 15:1215 (NRSV)
15

Rudolph, 179. This passage from the Song deserves comparison with one of the Chester Beatty Love
Songs, entitled The Beginning of the Songs of Extreme Happiness. The sixth stanza is spoken by the
woman (Simpson, Literature, 319320):
I passed by the precinct of his house,
I found his door ajar,
the lover standing by his mother,
with him his brothers and sisters.
Love of him captures the heart
of all who walk the road.
Handsome guy, no one like him,
a lover of perfect taste.
He stares me out when I walk by,
and all alone I cry for joy;
how happy in my delight
with the lover in my sight.
As has already been noted, the womans mother is mentioned with striking frequency in the
work, and here twice in two verses. According to the translation adopted above for v 2*, the
woman wishes to bring him into her mothers home, where he would teach her to prepare for
him a drink of wine and pomegranate. Obviously such potions in this context must symbolize the
delights of love, as the word-play kiss/drink indicates. The intensity of the yearning has
increased from v 1* to v 2*.
In some respects vv 12* remind one of the fantasy in 3:15* and 5:28*. The occurrence of
m (come upon) seems to be an echo of m in 3:24* and 5:68*. Also, ba (in public)
is the equivalent of the streets in 3:2*. Finally, the search in 3:13* is climaxed by discovery,
and the woman leads her lover into the house of her mother (3:4*; cf. 8:2*).

If only mother knew my wish,
she would have gone inside by now.
O, Golden Goddess, place him in her heart, too,
then Ill rush off to the lover.
Ill kiss him in front of his crowd,
Ill not be ashamed because of the women.
But Ill be happy at their finding out
that you know me this well.
Ill make festivals for my Goddess,
my heart trembles to come forth,
and to let me look over the lover tonight.
How happy, how happy is this passing by.
*
2
3
4
*
34* These verses are a reprise of 2:67*, with some insignificant variations (e.g., the
omission of the gazelles and hinds in v 4*); the prohibition is also reflected in 3:5* and 6:8*. The
meaning of vv 34* is the same as that of 2:67*. The woman expresses her satisfaction in his
embrace, and delivers a statement about the proper circumstances for arousing love. As with 2:6
7*, the refrain is preceded by mention of a rendezvous in a given place (house of wine, 2:4*;
and cf. 3:4*, house of my mother, 8:2*). The refrains in 8:4* and 3:5* are both followed by the
same question: Who is this that comes up from the desert? However, in 3:67* the response is
Solomons litter, while 8:5* certainly refers to the woman. These tie-ins are very tantalizing,
but they yield no sure conclusions about the structure of the work, or the nature of the individual
units (differences doe to oral recital?).
Appendices

1
2
3
*
6
7
*
5
6
7
8
spoken for?
5
*
(?) Who is this that comes up from the desert,

9
10
11
12
13
14
*

(leaning) is a hapax, and the translation is only approximate. The general meaning of
support is attested for the root in other Semitic languages (cf. Joon, 308).
In v 5b*, M vocalizes the second person singular pronominal suffixes (you, your) as masculine,
and hence attributes these lines to the woman. This understanding is retained by many commentators
(e.g., Miller [69]; Ringgren [34]; Gordis [13]; Gerleman [214215]; Pope [663]). Against it one may argue
that there has been no previous reference to the woman arousing the man to love under the apple tree.
(Throughout the Song, is used in this sense, except in 4:16*; it does not in any case refer to arousal
from sleep.) Moreover, except for the reference to the mother of Solomon in 3:11*, the mother is
always the mother of the woman. A change in vocalization of the suffixes, to read feminine forms, would
be a very minor emendation; but among the ancient versions only E (rtky, bltky mky, yldtky) attests
such a reading against M. (Pope [663] rightly points out that the vocalization in M does not support the
mainstream of Jewish allegorical interpretation, and thus may constitute a solid, earlier tradition.) In any
case, no matter who speaks these lines, the allusions remain obscure. Why is the arousal to love now
associated with the place where the mother had once conceived or given birth?
It is not certain whether the verbs and in v 5b* refer to the mothers conception or
travail in childbirth; forms of the root can be used to express both of these activities (cf. Ps 7:15*;
Isa 13:8*; 26:17*). B (corrupta, violata) and () seem to have read Pual perfect forms,
(was ruined); but both G ( ) and E (bltky) support M.
leaning upon her lover?
4

(?) Under the apple tree I aroused you;
there your mother conceived you,
there the one who bore you conceived.
6
*
W Place me as a seal on your heart,

Previously the woman compared the man to an apple tree, whose fruit and shade delighted her
(2:3*); and in her love-sickness, she sought refreshment from apples (2:5*). This fruit also appears in
7:9*[8*], with reference to its fragrance. But the significance of the apple tree in 8:5b* is not
immediately apparent, though it may reflect the motif of love under the trees which is found in
Egyptian love songs (Gerleman, 215; cf. Simpson, Literature, 312315).
4
*

(seal) is an Egyptian loanword. Such objects could be worn on strings about the neck (Gen
38:18*) and thus lie over the heart; they were also worn as rings on the hand (Jer 22:24*). Seals were
used for identification (Gen 38:18*) and signature purposes. ( , literally arm, may be
interchangeable here with *hand+, just as in 5:14* hand was understood as arm.) The practice
of wearing something that belongs to ones beloved is of course widespread, in the ancient and modern
worlds alike.
The which introduces v 6b* is asseverative, not causal (cf. GHB 164b), and is better left
untranslated.
The parallelism of with Sheol suggests that Death is personified here as a dynamic power.
Ugaritic mythological texts provide abundant testimony to such a personification, and it was also quite
common in ancient Hebrew thought (cf. Christoph Barth, Die Errettung vom Tode in den individuellen
Klage- und Dankliedern des Alten Testaments [Zollikon: Evangelischer Verlag, 1947]; Nicholas J. Tromp,
Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament [BibOr 21; Rome: Pontifical
Biblical Institute, 1969]; and Pope, 668669). Here love is compared to death with respect to strength.
In this context, ardor is a better translation of than passion (so, e.g., Pope, 669) which
might be interpreted too narrowly as only sexual in character. The use of the root with respect to
Yahweh (Deut 4:24*, referring to divine ardor and fire) and to the prophet Elijah (1 Kgs 19:10*,
with zeal I have been zealous) illustrates its broad meaning; cf. Hendrik A. Brongers, Der Eifer des
Herrn Zebaoth, VT 13 (1963) 269284, esp. 278.
as a seal on your arm.
Strong as Death is love;
intense as Sheol is ardor.
Its shafts are shafts of fire,
flames of Yah.

The construction and its parallelism with (see below) indicates that
the regnant idea has to do with fire. In Ps 76:4*, is used to indicate fiery arrows. The
term may also be associated with the name of a deity, Reep; see William Fulco (The Canaanite God
Reep [AOS 8; New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1976] 60) who takes the plural forms in 8:6* to
represent a common noun, while noting that its roots in mythology are unmistakable.
The construction is quite unusual and difficult. The noun occurs in Ezek 21:3*
and Job 15:30*, meaning flame. The vocalization in M suggests that the final two letters, , represent
an abbreviation or short form of the sacred name, Yahweh. The short form occurs in several psalms
(e.g., Ps 118:5*) and in other poetic texts, but usually exhibiting mappq in the letter (cf. Robert, 302;
and Fox, 170). G ( *its flames+) presupposes the same consonants as M, but understood
the final to be a third feminine singular pronominal suffix (referring to , love); cf. also G
(wlhbyt) and B (atque flammarum). Most commentators and modern translations assimilate the
reading of M to an idiom for the superlative, which elsewhere uses or to express the
greatness of divinity (e.g., Ps 36:7*; 80:11*); cf. David Witton Thomas, A Consideration of Some
Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew, VT 3 (1953) 209227,esp. 221. So understood,
the sense here would be a most vehement flame (RSV), blazing flame (NJV), or the like. Some
commentators have questioned the integrity of the text, but without substantial support from the
ancient versions. Although the colon is short, with only four syllables, one need not conclude that the
construction is a gloss (against Pope, 670671). It is possible that the text has suffered haplography;
perhaps its original reading was (flames of Yah are its flames). After the
preceding plurals ( ), a plural vocalization of makes better sense (so G). This
reading is adapted by Rudolph (179180) and others. Tournay (in Robert, 453) points out that the
rhythm of the verse (3+2) would demand separation of from . Those who claim that the
sacred name does not occur in the Song obviously do not accept the expression in this sense.
7
*
Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor rivers sweep it away.
Were one to give all his wealth for love,
he would be thoroughly despised.
8
*
(W) We have a little sister

*

(mighty waters) occurs some twenty-eight times in the Old Testament. The expression has
a mythological background: it is associated with the deity Yamm, Bals opponent in Ugaritic lore; in
biblical tradition it connotes the powers of chaos, which only God can dominate (Gen 1; Isa 51:910*; Ps
76:1214*). Cf. Herbert G. May, Some Cosmic Connotations of Mayim Rabbm, Many Waters, JBL 74
(1955) 921. This verse thus heightens the description of the power of love, which has been compared
to the strength of Death (v 6*) and is now likened to the strength of the mythical waters of chaos.
(Pope [673] has argued that v 7a and v 6b have the same meaning: the waters are the waters of
Death/Sheol, not the waters of chaos. But this view unnecessarily restricts the sense of the metaphor.
Cf. Roland E. Murphy, Dance and Death in the Song of Songs, Love and Death in the Ancient Near East:
Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope [ed. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford, Conn.: Four
Quarters, 1987+ 119: The appropriateness of the water metaphor is twofold: it contrasts with fire, and
it represents the powers of chaos which only the Lord can dominate. Love refuses to be conquered even
by such strength as the mayim rabbm represent.) Robert (304) points to the remarkable verbal
similarity between v 7a* and Isa 43:2*.
For the phrase (all his wealth *literally the whole value of his house+), cf. Prov
6:31*. For the sense of the preposition in (in exchange for love), cf. GHB 133c; and HSyn
246.
The impersonal plural-active construction (literally they would thoroughly despise
him/it) is best rendered passively: he would be thoroughly despised. The verb , forms a
catchword with 8:1b*. The antecedent of the third masculine singular pronominal suffix is uncertain;
it may refer to (one) in the preceding colon (so NJV, NAB, and the translation adopted above) or
to all his wealth (so RSV and NEB *it would be utterly scorned+, following AV). There is not sufficient
reason to interpret the phrase as a question (cf. Pope, 676).
*
By implication vv 89* were originally spoken by the brothers of the woman, (cf. 1:6*) and thus are put
in quotation marks. NEB ascribes the words to companions, apparently identifying them as rival
suitors for the woman; cf. Fuerst, 198: suitors who now follow a time-honoured ritual of making one
last attempt teasingly to woo the bride (who herself is the little sister) away from the bridegroom.
Rather, it would appear that the woman recalls the concerns expressed by her brothers about her
eventual marriage. It is evident from Gen 24:2960* and Judg 21:22* that brothers had a role in the
marriage of a sister. The woman quotes them directly, in the vivid style effected by the Song. Their point
and she has no breasts.
What shall we do for our sister,
on the day she will be spoken for?
9
*
If she is a wall,

is that the sister is not yet physically mature. There is no reason to interpret the little sister as a
younger sister of the woman. The reference in the final phrase is to marriage, as the expression
(speak for) in 1 Sam 25:39* makes clear; cf. Joon, 321322. (It is not probable that in v 8*
means speak against in a hostile sense; cf. Pope, 678.)
*

The metaphor of the (wall) in itself suggests something that encloses and protects. Hence the
supposition is that the little sister is inaccessible, and closes herself off from something.
(turret) means an enclosure of some kind (Ezek 46:23*). This could be protective or
delimiting, but also decorative. Since here it is made of silver, one may infer that an ornamental
structure is meant. Commentators who interpret as a protective buttress, something to defend
the woman, find the reference to its construction of silver difficult to explain.
The metaphor of the (door) is ambiguous, suggesting both entrance and closure.
Accordingly, this word can be taken to stand in either antithetic or synonymous parallelism to wall.
Both interpretations have some support: either the little sister is open, yielding, and not closed off; or
else closed, firm, and impregnable. Gordis (33, 100) cites with approval the Akkadian incantation
advanced by Tur-Sinai: If he is a door, I will open thy mouth; if he is a bar, I will open thy tongue. But
this charm does not demonstrate the synonymous parallelism alleged for v 9*.
In the expression (we shall board her up), the verb is most easily related to the root
II
(HELOT 848: confine, bind, besiege; cf.
I
), which is often construed, as here, with the
preposition (e.g., 2 Sam 11:1*; 2 Kgs 6:24*, 25*; Isa 29:3*). Less likely is the interpretation
represented in G () and B (conpingamus), which derives the verb from
IV
(HELOT 849:
fashion, delineate; cf. ). Accordingly, the following accusative of specification (*with+ a
cedar plank) should symbolize the strength of the defense intended by the brothers, rather than its
ornamental character.
From the above it is clear that the proposal of the brothers can be understood in two ways,
involving either synonymous or antithetic parallelism of the metaphors. 1) If their sister resists whatever
they have in mind (synonymous parallelism of wall/door), then they will act to overcome this resistance
(turret/plank). 2) If the sister resists (wall), they will treat her in one way (turret); but if she yields (door),
they will treat her in another way (plank). It is not enough to claim that the door, in relation to the wall,
we shall build upon her a silver turret.
If she is a door,
we shall board her up with a cedar plank.
10
*
W I am a wall,

necessarily indicates a weak point that makes a breach possible, and therefore the parallelism is
antithetic. The translation adopts antithetic parallelism on the basis of the course of action followed by
the brothers. Specifically, the boarding up with a cedar plank suggests aggressive action against a
yielding door. In addition, this interpretation of the metaphor enables one to understand these lines in
the context of the brothers attitude and the sisters reply.
*

The woman, now fully mature and responsible, reflects upon her brothers designs for their little sister
by taking up the metaphor of the wall, thereby affirming her independence. In comparing her breasts
to towers ( ) she also gives a sharp response to their manner of describing her physical
immaturity. She is now indeed nubile, and there seems to be a note of pride in the comparison.
(then) is to be taken in the sense of in that case, or thus, and not in a strictly temporal
sense.
There is no explicit antecedent to the third masculine singular pronominal suffix in the phrase
(in his eyes). In the context of the whole work, it must be understood to refer to the womans
lover. However, the lack of an antecedent is a good reason for regarding these lines as a fragment.
The preposition before is either comparative or asseverative (indeed); cf. GHB 133g
(kaph veritatis), and HSyn 261. can be derived either from (find, Qal feminine singular
active participle) or from (go out, Hipil feminine singular participle: one who brings out,
produces). The ambiguity makes any translation uncertain. The woman could mean that she found
(peace) or that she offers terms of peace (cf. Deut 20:1011*), in the sense that she surrenders
herself to the man. However, a different idiom is used in Deut 20:1011*: or .
Hence it is better to derive from , understanding the expression to mean that the woman
finds peace. In the context, the woman affirms that the mans loving acceptance of herin contrast to
the distrustful attitude of the brothershas brought peace, well-being, and fulfillment. There is
probably a deliberate play here on the name of Solomon ( , ; cf. Shulammite).
1112* These verses seem to comprise a separate unit, in which the topic is vineyards, one
belonging to Solomon and the other to the speaker. The unit does not continue the little sister theme
of vv 810*, and is apparently unrelated to vv 1314*, in which the man and the woman exchange
words in a conversation. The verses could be spoken either by the man or the woman.
and my breasts like towers.
Then I have become in his eyes
as one who finds peace.
11
*
(?) Solomon had a vineyard
in Baal-hamon.
He gave the vineyard to the keepers;
one would pay for its fruit
a thousand pieces of silver.
12
*
My own vineyard is at my disposal

*

Like (7:5*), seems to be the name of a place; it means lord of a multitude (cf. B
ea quae habet populos *that which has people+) or possibly lord of wealth (so Gordis, 101). The place
in question has not been securely identified, although some have associated it with Balamon near
Dothan (on the basis of Jdt 8:3*). For discussion of these and other interpretations, see Robert, 317
318; and Pope, 686688.
The indefinite one ( ) does not refer to the guardians, but to anyone, and the emphasis of
the statement bears on the price of the vineyards fruits.
Isaiah 7:23* speaks of vineyards, each with a thousand vines and worth a thousand pieces of silver,
which may give an idea of the size and value of Solomons vineyard. The speaker does not have in
mind an actual transaction to purchase the vineyards produce for (a thousand pieces of
silver); the intent is only to suggest how valuable the property is. The stated price may well include an
allusion to the thousand wives and concubines in Solomons harem (1 Kgs 11:3*). The symbolism of
vineyard representing the woman is essential to an understanding of these lines.
*

(my own vineyard) is found on the lips of the woman in 1:6*; hence many commentators
attribute vv 1112* to her. On the other hand, it is possible that the man uses her phrase of 1:6* to
describe her in 8:12*. In any event, this second vineyard is set in deliberate contrast to that of
Solomon (v 11*).
At my disposal is literally before me ( ). The vineyard belongs only to the possessor, who
can do as he/she pleases with it. (For this usage of , cf. Gen 13:9*; 24:51*; 34:10*; etc.).
(the thousand *pieces+) must refer to the silver of v 11*. Only here is Solomon addressed
by name in the Song. The keepers refer back to the keepers to whom the vineyard was given (v 11*).
The two hundred silver pieces are allotted to them as some kind of payment.
the thousand (pieces) for you, Solomon,
and two hundred for the keepers of its fruit.
13
*
M You who dwell in the garden,
let me hear your voice!
14
*
W Flee, my lover;
upon the mountains of spices.
Interpretation
The continuity and coherence of the text seem to break down in 8:514*, which may be a
collection of disparate poems or fragments of poems.
1
Five separate units can be distinguished:

1314* In keeping with the disparate character of 8:514*, the last two verses of the work have no
obvious connection with the immediately preceding lines, but seem to attest portions of conversation.
*

The Qal active feminine singular participle (you who dwell) indicates that the woman is
being addressed, presumably by the man, who voiced a similar wish in 2:14*. The variants reflected in G
and E are not significant enough to modify the reading in M. G understood the participle as masculine (
); and E read the plural (ylyn dytbyn *those who dwell+).
(gardens) is the plural of generalization (GHB 136j; HSyn 7) and should be taken literally,
rather than as a metaphor for the woman (cf. 4:12*; 5:1*; 6:2*).
Friends is literally companions ( ). These are not further identified, but the word is used
in 1:7* to indicate those who are associated with the shepherd in pasturing the flocks.
The accentuation in M joins to the preceding Hipil masculine plural participle
(*friends+ are listening to your voice). The translation above follows the syntax of B (fac me audire
vocem tuam *make me hear your voice+) in making the object of (cf. the mans
request in 2:14*).
*
The woman issues an invitation to the man couched in language that is a reprise of 2:17*. (flee)
is not to be understood as a rejection, but in the sense of (turn), as in 2:17*. Here she invites him
to the (mountains of spices), apparently to be identified with the obscure mountains of
Bether mentioned in 2:17*. In both cases, of course, the mountains are a metaphor for the woman.
*
5
vv 5*; 67*; 810*; 1112*; and 1314*. These units are not united by dialogue, although
dialogue occurs within them. They include many echoes of lines appearing in earlier parts of the
Song.

6
7
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
13
14
1
Robert (308) characterized 8:814* as appendices; the label can just as easily apply to 8:57*.
*
5
*
6
7
Verse 5* has no apparent connection with 8:4*, and its relationship to 8:6* is equally
problematical. The woman is hailed as coming from the desert with her lover (v 5a*). In v 5b*
she speaks (so M) to the man, referring to her arousal of his love in the very place where his own
mother conceived him. Our translation changes the vocalization so that v 5b* is spoken by the

*
8
spoken for?
9
10
*
11
12
*
13
14
*
4
*
6
man to the woman. But in either case, the import of the verse remains obscure. It is hard to
escape the impression that the verse is a mere fragment.
2

Verses 67* clearly belong together as a unit. The womans plea to be inseparably united
with her lover (v 6a*) is followed by a poem celebrating the power of love (vv 6b7*).
3

Verses 810* consist of a reminiscence on the part of the woman, recalling her brothers
plans for her (vv 89*), followed by her own statement of independence from them (v 10*).
There is no apparent connection with the immediately preceding or following verses, but the
reference to the brothers can be seen as a kind of inclusio with 1:6*.
Verses 1112* deal with the vineyard, and can probably be attributed to the woman, but
again there is no immediate context for interpretation of these lines.
Verses 1314* are apparently a conversation between the man and the woman, drawing on
earlier lines in the Song.
The disparate nature of these units gives one greater appreciation for the dialogical unity that
prevails through most of the chapters in the Song. If the word anthology is used for any part of
the work, it is particularly suitable for 8:514*.
5* Although the question in v 5a* (Who is this?) is a reprise of 3:6*, a different answer is
now given. Here it is clearly the woman who comes up from the desert; there it was a

2
So Gerleman, 215; and Wrthwein, 67.
3
Cf. Horst, Formen, 185; similarly Loretz, 49; and Robert, 300.
*
8
spoken for?
9
*
10
*
6
*
procession bearing Solomons litter (3:7*). In both instances the question follows upon the same
appeal to the Daughters of Jerusalem, and in both instances a new unit appears to begin. It is
impossible to say with any certainty who speaks these words, which are intended to hail the
approach of the woman. The significance of the allusion to the desert escapes us here, as it does
also in 3:6* and 6:10*.
The translation sets v 5b* in quotation marks to indicate a direct statement by the man or,
according to the vocalization of M, the woman. Presumably this statement represents a snatch of
conversation between the two. The words about love under the apple tree could be spoken by
either party.
4
The association of love and fruits, flowers, etc. is common elsewhere in the Song
(5:1*; 6:2*; 7:13*) as well as in Egyptian love poetry. It must be admitted that the emphatic

6
*
7
*
10
banners?
4
G. Krinetzki (2526) suggests that the reference to the apple tree in 8:5b* is meant to recall the
comparison of the man to an apple tree in 2:3*; if it is he who now speaks, the sense is: with me,
through my body and my tenderness have I aroused you. In this case, the man would also be drawing a
comparison between the woman and her mother (cf. 3:4*).
*
1
*
2
to gather lilies.
reference to the place (thereunder the apple tree) where the mother conceived remains very
obscure.
5

6* Verses 67* may be described as a climactic point in the Song, in the sense that they neatly
summarize what the poems are about: the desire of the lovers for abiding union. One may note
parallels in Egyptian love poetry and elsewhere, but the beauty of these biblical lines remains
unsurpassed.
The M vocalization of the pronominal suffixes in v 6a* correctly attributes the verse to the
woman.
6
The comparison of the seal ring points to the inseparability of the couple.
7
This is

*
12
5
In contrast to the uncertainty registered above, Albright (Archaic Survivals 7) writes: There can be
little doubt that the mother of the beloved was a mythical figure, possibly a girl who had escaped to the
desert after having become pregnant by a god. A somewhat similar situation is described in the Poem of
the Beautiful and Gracious Gods, where the two infants born of El and two unnamed women are reared
in the Desert of Kadesh. Even if such a mythological association could be proved, however, one is still
left with the question of how this would be understood in the context of Hebrew love poetry. Could the
reference be taken as a compliment to the beloved, adumbrating his/her supposedly divine origins?
There is simply no analogy for such a notion elsewhere in the literature of the Hebrew Bible.
6
Contra Robert, 298299.
7

In one of the Cairo Love Songs, the man expresses his desire to be a seal ring on his lovers hand
I wish I were the seal ring,
the guardian of her [fingers],
then *+.
Moreover, because no obstacle is too great for love to overcome, the Egyptian lover expresses himself
in terms similar to those of 8:7* (Simpson, Literature, 310):
further developed by v 6b*, which is concerned with the awesome power of love.
8
In what sense
is love here compared to Death and Sheol? Behind the biblical metaphor of death as a

Ill head into the waves,
8

The power of love has, of course, been celebrated in other ancient literature. Especially noteworthy is
the hymn to Eros (comprised of strophe and antistrophe) in Sophocles Antigone, 781800 (F. Storr, tr.,
Sophocles, Vol. 1 [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University; London: William Heinemann, 1912] 376377):
Love resistless in fight,
all yield at a glance of thine eye,
Love who pillowed all night
on a maidens cheek dost lie,
Over the upland folds thou roamst,
and the trackless sea.
Love the gods captive holds.
Shall mortals not yield to thee?
Mad are thy subjects all,
and even the wisest heart
Straight to folly will fall,
at a touch of thy poisoned dart.
Thou didst kindle the strife,
this feud of kinsmen with kin,
By the eyes of a winsome wife,
and the yearning her heart to win.
For as her consort still,
personified force lies the Canaanite mythology of Mot, god of Death, who engages in struggle
with Bal, only to be eventually overcome. A personification of death can be recognized in Hos

enthroned with Justice above,
Thou bendest man to thy will,
O all invincible Love.
([strophe, lines 781790] ,
, -
, -
,

-
, .
[antistrophe, lines 791800]
-
-

,
-
-
.)
Cf. also Ovid, Ars amatoria, 1.1923.
13:14*: Shall I deliver them from the power of the nether world? Shall I redeem them from
death? Where are your plagues, O death! Where is your sting, O nether world! Similarly,
Death and Sheol are also used in parallelism in Pss 18:6*; 49:15*; 89:48*. Thus
Death/Sheol was thought to be a dynamic force that pursues every human being. This pursuit
goes on as long as one lives, until the hand [power] of death ostensibly prevails (Ps 49). The
psalmist describes distress, any degree of nonlife, as being in Sheol (Ps 30:4*). To the extent that
good is absent in life, Death is exerting its influence. It is this dynamic view of death and its
power that is the point of comparison in 8:6*. But here the emphasis is not upon the threat which
Death/Sheol undoubtedly constitutes for humans, but upon its sheer force and relentlessness.
So it is with love. Love will not give up, but will pursue the loved one just as persistently as the
great and fearful power of Death. The parallel word for love, ardor (qin), is not to be
understood in the narrow sense of (sexual) passion, or in the sense of jealousy; it has to do with
intense devotion, dedication to the loved one.

*
14
Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death? O Death, where are
your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion is hidden from my eyes.
Hosea 13:14 (NRSV)
*
5
the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
Psalm 18:5 (NRSV)
*
14
Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd; straight to the grave they
descend,and their form shall waste away; Sheol shall be their home.
Psalm 49:14 (NRSV)
*
47
Remember how short my time isfor what vanity you have created all mortals!
Psalm 89:47 (NRSV)
*
3
O Lord, you brought up my soul from Sheol, restored me to life from among those gone down to the
Pit.
Psalm 30:3 (NRSV)
Note well that v 6* does not emphasize Loves power over against that of Death.
9
Love is
compared to Death as regards strength, but it is not presented as being locked in battle with
Death. The point of the comparison is the quality of love in its relationship to the beloved; in this
respect it is comparable to Death and its relationship to a human being. Both attain their objects.
Another forceful dimension appears in the comparison of love to flames of Yah[weh]
(lhbtyh). The sense of the latter term is admittedly ambiguous. In view of the parallel
expression, shafts of fire, most commentators are inclined to interpret this as a reference to
lightning (Yahwehs flames). Already Ginsburg remarked that the comparison suggests not
merely the vehemence of the fires of love, but that they emanate from the Eternal.
10
One may
doubt if this meaning was intended by the original writer. Nevertheless, the received text can
bear such an interpretation. Human love has or resembles the flame of divine love; both can be
compared in intensity (and perhaps even in origin, in the sense of 1 John 4:7*?). A perspective
on human love is taken here that calls for theological evaluation.
11

The mention of flames in v 6* appropriately evokes the image of its opposite, water. The
epithet mayim rabbm (mighty waters) stands for the waters of chaos, a formidable threat to
life. But not even this primordial power is stronger than love. The rivers serve merely as a
parallel to mayim rabbm but are no less significant as a symbol of stark, overwhelming power.
Disdain is surely the proper reaction to one who would attempt to purchase love. This
judgment may seem somewhat anticlimactic after the preceding lines, but in the biblical world,
where the mhar, or bride-price, played a significant role, the reference was appropriate.

9
Pope, 667.
10
Ginsburg, 188.
*
7
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and
knows God.
1 John 4:7 (NRSV)
11
L. Krinetzki (244) remarks as follows: It *love+, as participating in divine qualities (6f.*), is victor over
the floods of chaos, as God himself who conquered the primeval waters at the beginning of the world.
Yet it is the flames of love, not explicitly the power of love, that participates in divine qualities. See
also Leo Krinetzki, Die Macht der Liebe, MTZ 13 (1962) 256279. Nicholas J. Tromp (Wisdom and the
Canticle. Ct 8,6c7b: text, character, message and import, La Sagesse de lAncien Testament [ed.
Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979+, 94) provides a slightly different perspective: The
implication of these remarks is that Love is represented here as a force which is able to overcome the
negative forces which threaten the very existence of the world and mankind. In other words, Love gains
the victory over chaos and creates wholesome order and life. Very likely the dark powers are personified
in God. That means that Love is brought on the stage as a person as well. Consequently, Love is a
personified creative power in these lines, and the partition here between Love and God is extremely thin
indeed. Tromp claims that these verses are the proper end of the Song; he adopts Tournays point
that the term ahb (love) in 8:6* forms an inclusio with 1:34*.
Moreover, the practices associated with the bride-price seem to figure in the background of vv 8
12*.
812* These verses introduce a vignette that has no obvious connection with the immediate
context, but, as already indicated, the episode forms a kind of inclusio, echoing the reference to
brothers of 1:6*. Actually, the lines of vv 812* are to be attributed to the woman, who first
quotes directly words spoken about her, when she was younger, by her brothers (vv 89*) and
then replies to them (v 10*) from the viewpoint of a mature woman.
There is a rather solemn air about the announcement of the brothers concerning their little
sister, whom they formally introduce as a child in v 8a*. But she becomes the problem in v
8b*. What will be their responsibility to her when she reaches marriageable age? There is an
almost riddle-like quality to the solution (v 9*) which the brothers propose to their own question.
They offer two alternatives, whose meaning depends upon the interpretation of wall and

*
8
spoken for?
9
10
11
12
*
8
spoken for?
*
9
door. These terms are most likely to be understood as standing in antithetic, rather than
synonymous parallelism.
12

The force of the wall metaphor has to be ascertained. A wall encloses; it also protects and
defends. How is this to be understood in context? Gordis judges that the sister is obdurate, and
refuses her suitors offers of marriage.
13
Other commentators derive the sense from v 10*, where
wall seems to be a symbol of physical maturity (breasts like towers); hence they understand
wall to refer to the ripe maturity of the girl.
14
The more usual interpretation sees in the wall a
symbol of the sisters chastity: she has never been known by a man, and is to remain so.
15

Accordingly, the r which the brothers build upon (or against) her is variously interpreted as a
means to overcome her obduracy or as an adornment, such as a silver crown, a bridal crown, or a
high bride-price.
16

The ambiguity of the door metaphor leads to several possible interpretations. Some
commentators understand door in opposition to wall (cf. v 10*), and hence take it to
symbolize the womans physical immaturity; in this case, the brothers intend to protect their
young sister from an early marriage.
17
But if the door is understood as a symbol for yielding, the
supposition may be that should she fail to keep her chastity, the brothers will sequester her.
18
Or
the supposition may be that should she give up her obduracy and yield to one of her suitors, he
(or the brothers) will reward her with gifts.
19

The translation adopted here supposes that the brothers mean to take harsh measures if
necessary to protect their sister. If she fails to remain chaste, they will take steps to board her up.
Obviously the other interpretations mentioned above would yield different translations.
10* The girl gives answer to the plans of the brothers which she has just quoted. The answer
presupposes a period of time has elapsed since the brothers announced their plans. She reverts
back to the brothers words in order to give a triumphant reply, affirming the first of the

12
See the Notes above, and now also R. Lansing Hicks, The Door of Love, Love and Death in the Ancient
Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford, Conn.:
Four Quarters, 1987) 153158.
Gordis Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translation and
Commentary (New York: Ktav,
2
1974).
13
Gordis, 100.
14
So Wrthwein, 70; and Loretz, 51.
15
Rudolph, 183; Gerleman, 220; and L. Krinetzki, 250251.
16
So, respectively, Loretz, 51 (Silberkranz); Wrthwein, 70 (Brautkranz); and Rudolph, 183 (hohen
Brautpreis).
17
Cf. Wrthwein, 70; and Loretz, 51.
18
Rudolph, 183.
19
So Gordis, 100.
alternatives which they proposed. Wall in v 10* must have the same meaning given to it by the
various interpretations of v 9*. Hence she is saying that she is unyielding to unwelcome
suitors, because she already belongs to her lover.
20
Or she states that she is now physically
mature and ready for marriage.
21
In either case, she is to be understood as affirming her chastity,
in the sense of her fidelity to her lover; she is the enclosed garden of 4:12*, who belongs
totally to him.
The woman again takes up a significant term from the brothers words (breasts), in order to
emphasize her maturity and beauty, and the distance from the days when they had thought to
supervise her.
The male lover is very much present in this discussion of the womans future, as the sudden
reference to his eyes indicates. With him she has found welcome or well-being (the precise
meaning of peace is hard to determine here), a totally satisfying relationship that goes far
beyond the protective designs of her brothers.
In summary, the plan of the brothers is twofold, depending upon their sisters reaction. She
will be rewarded if she observes their restrictions, but she will be constrained if she disobeys
them. Her reply disregards their plan, even while it takes up their language, and affirms her
readiness for marriage, her independence and chastity, and the fact that she has been accepted by
her lover. This vignette is best seen as a boast, made by the woman against her meddlesome
brothers. It has a certain humor and irony, but it speaks against the disposition of the woman as
mere family property.
1112* These verses are a boasting song, comparable to 6:89*, in which the man prizes his
beloved beyond the entire harem of Solomon.
22
This interpretation supposes that the man is
speaking of her in the phrase my own vineyard, in contrast to Solomons vineyard. The style is
unusual; it begins as a story about the vineyard of Solomon, then suddenly Solomon is being
addressed by someone speaking of another vineyard.

20
Gordis, 100101.
21
Loretz, 51; and Wrthwein, 6970.
*
12
*
8
9
22
So Horst, Formen, 183.
No matter who the speaker is in v 11*, there is clear reference to King Solomon. There is no
reason to see the king fiction at work. Solomon is meant literally here, because he was rich
enough to possess such a valuable vineyard. Similarly, the reference to vineyard can be
taken literally here, but in view of the metaphorical meaning of vineyard in v 12*, with which
Solomons vineyard is contrasted, the term may also be a metaphor for Solomons harem.
23

There is no obvious reason why keepers of the vineyard are mentioned. This reference
does not seem to have any relationship to the role assigned to the woman by her brothers in
keeping the vineyards in 1:6*. However, it is worth noting that several themes in chapter 1
reappear in the last part of chapter 8 (vineyard, keepers, brothers). The mention of the keepers
here also provides the occasion for a pointed and emphatic reference in v 12*. Similarly, the
indication of the value of the vineyard (a thousand pieces of silver) is given in view of the use
that will be made of it in v 12*.
The phrase my own vineyard is clearly emphatic, and is in contrast to Solomons vineyard
in v 11*. Because this is the exact phrase which occurs on the lips of the woman in 1:6*, it is
possible that she speaks these words. She would be referring to her own independence, when she
characterizes my vineyard as before me, or at my disposal. Thus if she speaks these lines,
she affirms her free gift of herselfan affirmation that is in accord with the disdain expressed
for the bride-price in 8:7b*. However, the situation in v 12* is not the same as in 1:6*; hence this
verse need not be assigned to the woman. There she explained her appearance (my own
vineyard I have not kept) in terms of the menial work in the vineyard to which her brothers had
assigned her. Here the stakes are greater; the speaker is contrasting a vineyard with the
vineyard of no less a personage than king Solomon. Hence it is also possible to understand
these lines as spoken by the man about the woman, in the spirit of his praise of her in 6:89*, as
surpassing the royal harem itself. The vineyard of Solomon in v 11* now seems to have the aura

*
11
*
12
23
Regarding Solomons harem, see 1 Kgs 11:13*; and cf. p. 178 above (on 6:89*).
*
7
of the royal harem; the speaker could be comparing his vineyard to that of Solomon, that is, his
beloved to the harem of Solomon. This is perhaps indicated by what follows.
If the woman addresses Solomon, she seems to be saying that his vineyard has merely
monetary value. If this is spoken by the man, he is telling Solomon that he can keep his vineyard
(the royal harem), which cannot compare in value to his beloved (cf. 6:820*). With a kind of
satirical panache, the speaker specifies a sum (two hundred pieces) for the vineyard keepers.
1314* The concluding verses epitomize the tantalizing shifts of person and scene that are
characteristic of the Song as a whole. Now the man addresses the woman, who is present in the
garden, and she replies.
24

The man expresses the same desire he uttered in 2:14*to hear her voice. The desire is
sharpened by the reference to the friends. Who are these brm? This term is used to
describe the companions of the man in 1:7*, where he is portrayed as a shepherd: the woman

*
8
9
10
banners?
11
12
24
Gerleman (223) considers v 14* to be a continuation of v 13*, in the sense that the concluding words
are those which the man asks to hear. But on the analogy of 2:17*, it is more likely that the verses are to
be read as dialogue, with v 14* assigned to the woman. It has been suggested that the original setting of
this exchange is a lovers game of hide and seek (Marcus Antonius van den Oudenrijn, Het Hooglied
[BOT 8/3; J. J. Romen & Zonen, 1962] 44).
*
14
*
7
expressed a fear of being misled and straying near the herds of your companions. It is hardly
necessary to insist on a marriage context and to interpret the companions as part of the wedding
party. They are simply the friends of the lover, whom he associates with his own desire to hear
her voice.
The reply (v 14*) is an echo of 2:17*, which was also spoken by the woman. Hence it should
be understood here also as spoken by her in reply to the request of v 13*. She responds with a
snatch of verse modeled on 2:17* (cf. also 2:9*; 4:6*). She invites him to flee to the mountains
of spice, i.e., to herself. Her reaction is, first of all, just what he asks for: she lets her voice be
heard. Secondly, her words can be anything, as long as she speaks. When he asked to hear her
voice in 2:15, she replied with the enigmatic lines about the little foxes (2:16*). But now her
answer is more cogent: she invites him to join her.

*
14
*
17
cleft mountains.
*
13
*
9
*
6
frankincense.
*
Bibliography
1. Commentaries to the Song of Songs (chronological listing)
The list of commentaries given here is selective, especially for works written before the
nineteenth century. For more extensive listings of earlier works, see the following (in section b/
below): Rosenmller (1830) 280301; Joon (1909) 96109; Ricciotti (1928) 172192; and
Pope (1977) 236251.
a/ Pre-Nineteenth Century
Hippolytus of Rome [d. 235 C.E.]
Fragmenta in Canticum conticorum in PG 10, 627630; and Gottlieb Nathanael Bonwetsch and H.
Achellis (eds.), Hippolytus Werke, Vol. 1: Hippolyts Kommentar zum Buche Daniel und die Fragmente
des Kommentars zum Hohenliede (GCS; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1897) 341374. Cf. also Gottlieb
Nathanael Bonwetsch, Hippolyts Kommentar zum Hohenlied auf Grund von N. Marrs Ausgabe des
grusinischen Textes (TU 23/2c [N.F. 8]; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1902); and the Latin translation in Grard
Garitte (tr.), Traits dHippolyte (CSCO 264; Louvain: Secretariat du CorpusSCO, 1965).
Origen [185254]
Homiliae in Canticum canticorum and Commentarium in Canticum canticorum in W. A. Baehrens (ed.),
Origenes Werke; Vol. 8 (GCS 33; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1925) 20241 = Origen: The Song of Songs.
Commentary and Homilies (tr. R. P. Lawson; ACW 26; Westminster, Maryland: Newman; London:
Longman/Green, 1957).

16
Joon Paul Joon, Le Cantique des Cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exgtique (Paris: Gabriel
Beauchesne,
2
1909).
Ricciotti Giuseppe Ricciotti, Il Cantico dei Cantici: Versione critica dal testo ebraico con introduzione e
commento (Torino: Societ editrice internazionale, 1928).
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca (ed. Jacques-Paul Migne)
GCS Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte
TU Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur
N.F. Neue Folge
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
Lawson R. P. Lawson, Origen: The Song of Songs. Commentary and Homilies (ACW 26; Westminster,
Maryland: Newman; London: Longman, Green, 1957).
Gregory of Nyssa [335394]
Commentarius in Canticum canticorum in PG 44, 7551120; and Hermannus Langerbeck (ed., Gregorii
Nysseni in Canticum canticorum (Gregorii Nysseni Opera 6; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960).
Ambrose of Milan [339397]
Commentarius in Cantica canticorum in PL 15, 19452060.
Jerome [c. 340420]
Interpretatio homiliarum duarum Origenis in Canticum canticorum in PL 23, 11731196.
Theodoret of Cyrus [c. 393466]
Explanatio in Canticum canticorum in PG 81, 27214.
Procopius of Gaza [d. 538]
In Cantica canticorum, selectarum expositionum epitome in PG 87, 15451780.
Gregory the Great [540604]
Expositiones in Canticum canticorum in Patricius Verbraken (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Magni (CCSL 144;
Turnholti: Brepols, 1963) 346.
Isidore of Seville [c. 600]
Expositio in Cantica canticorum Salomonis in PL 83, 11191132.
Canticles Rabbah (Midr zt) [c. 600]
Song of Songs in H. Freedman and Maurice Simon (eds.), Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 (tr. Maurice Simon;
London: Soncino, 1930).
Targum r harm [c. 700]
Targum to Canticles in Alexander Sperber (ed.), The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and
Printed Texts, Vol. 4A: The Hagiographa: Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1968) 127141. Translations Wilhelm Riedel, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde
und der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig: A Deichert, 1898) 941; Hermann Gollancz, The Targum to the
Song of Songs (London: Luzac, 1908); Paul Vulliaud, Le Cantique des cantiques daprs la tradition
juive (Paris: Universitaires de France, 1925) 67103.
Beda Venerabilis [673735]
In Cantica canticorum allegorica expositio in PL 91, 10651236; and D. Hurst (ed.), Bedae Venerabilis
Opera, Part II/2B (CCSL 119B, Turnholti: Brepols, 1983) 165375.
Aggdat r harm r harm z [c. 1000]
Solomon Schechter (ed.), (Cambridge: Bell, 1896); and Salomon Buber (ed.),
, , (Berlin, 1894; Wilno,
2
1925).
Midr r harm [c. 1000]
Lazar Grnhut (ed.), (Jerusalem/Jaffa, 1897).
Anselm of Laon [d. 1117]
Enarrationes in Cantica canticorum in PL 162, 11871228.
Bruno of Asti [10491123]

PL plates
Simon Maurice Simon (tr.), Song of Songs in Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 (ed. H. Freedman and Maurice
Simon; London: Soncino, 1930).
Sperber Aramaic text of the Targum to Canticles (Tg. ir harm), cited according to Alexander
Sperber (ed.), The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts, Vol. 4A: The
Hagiographa: Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 127141.
Expositio in Cantica canticorum in PL 164, 12331288.
Rupert of Deutz [10701129]
Commentaria in Cantica canticorum in PL 168, 837962.
William of Saint Thierry [c. 10851148]
Expositio altera super Cantica canticorum in PL 180, 473546. Translations: J.-M. Dchanet and M.
Dumontier, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: Expos sur le Cantique des Cantiques (SC 82; Paris: Cerf,
1962); The Works of William of St. Thierry, Vol. 2: Exposition on the Song of Songs (tr. Columba Hart;
CFS 6; Spencer, Massachusetts: Cistercian Publications, 1970).
Bernard of Clairvaux [c. 10911153]
Sermones in Canticum in Jean Leclerq, Henri M. Rochais, and Charles H. Talbot (eds.), Sancti Bernardi
Opera, Vols. 12 (Rome: Editiones Cistercienses, 1957, 1958) = [The Works of] Bernard of Clairvaux:
On the Song of Songs, 4 Vols. (tr. Kilian Walsh and Irene M. Edmonds; CFS 4, 7, 31, 40; Spencer,
Massachusetts/Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 197180); also Canticum Canticorum:
Eighty-six Sermons on the Song of Songs by Saint Bernard (tr. S. J. Eales; London: Stock, 1895).
Gilbert of Hoyland [d. 1172]
Sermones in Canticum Salomonis ab eo loco ubi B. Bernardus morte praeventus desiit in PL 184, 11252
= The Works of Gilbert of Hoyland: Sermons on the Song of Songs, 3 Vols. (tr. Lawrence C. Braceland;
CFS 14, 24, 26; Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 197879).
Ioannis de Forda [c. 1190]
Super extremam partem Cantici canticorum sermones = John of Ford: Sermons on the Final Verses of the
Song of Songs, 7 Vols. (tr. Wendy Mary Beckett; CFS 29; Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1977,
198284).
Luther, Martin
In Cantica Canticorum brevis, sed admodum dilucida enarratio in D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische
Gesamtausgabe, Vol. 31/2 (Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus, 1914) 586769 [with George Rorers
transcription of the lectures delivered in 153031 as well as the text of the edition printed in 1539] =
[printed edition only] Lectures on the Song of Solomon: A Brief but Altogether Lucid Commentary on
the Song of Songs by Dr. Martin Luther (tr. lan Siggins) in Jaroslav Pelikan and Hilton C. Oswald (eds.),
Luthers Works, Vol. 15 (Saint Louis: Concordia, 1972) 189264.
Clarius
Canticum Canticorum Salomonis, ad hebraicam veritatem nunc demum emendatum, adjectis scholiis ex
arcanis hebraeorum erutis, quae tamen in primis Christi et Ecclesiae misteria breviter explicant (Venice,
1544).
Genebrard, Gilbert
Observationes in Canticum Canticorum (Paris, 1579,
2
1585 [Canticum Canticorum versibus jambicis et
Commentariis explicatum, adversus trochaicam Theod. Bezae paraphrasin].
Leon, Luis de [Luysius Legionensis]
In Canticum Canticorum Solomonis explanatio (Salamanca, 1580) = El Cantar de los Cantares (ed. Jorge
Guillen; Salamanca: Sigueme, 1980).
Thodore de Bze
Sermons sur les trois premiers chapitres du Cantique des Cantiques de Salomon (Fleuron, 1586) =
Master Bezaes Sermons upon the Three First Chapters of the Canticle of Canticles (tr. John Harmer;
Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1587).
Ghislerius, Michael [Pius V]
Canticum Canticorum Salomonis, juxta lectiones Vulgatam, Ebraeam et Graecas, tum Septuaginta, tum
aliorum interpretum (Rome, 1609; Venice, 1613).

SC Sources chrtiennes
CFS Cistercian Fathers Series
Brightman, Thomas
Scholia et analysis in Canticum canticorum (Basel, 1614) = [revised and abridged] A commentary on
the Canticles, or the Song of Salomon. Wherein the Text is Analised, the Native signification of the
Words Declared, The Allegories Explained, and the Order of times whereunto they relate observed in
The Workes of that Famous Reverend, and Learned Divine, Mr. Tho. Brightman (London, 1644).
Sanctius [Sanchez], Caspar
Commentarius in Canticum canticorum (Lyon, 1616).
Ainsworth, Henry
Solomons Song of Songs, in English Metre: With Annotations and References to Other Scriptures, for the
Easier Understanding of It (London, 1639).
Cotton, John
Explicatio Cantici Canticorum (London, 1642) = A Brief Exposition of the Whole Book of Canticles; or,
Song of Solomon (London, 1648 [reprinted in Nichols Series of Commentaries (Edinburgh/London,
1868)]).
Salazar, Ferdinand Quirini de
Expositiones in Canticum Canticorum (Lyon, 1642).
Grotius, Hugo
Ad Canticum Canticorum in Annotationes ad vetus Testamentum, Vol. 1 (ed. G. I. L. Vogel; Halle,
1644,
2
1775) 449454.
Lapide, Cornelius
In Canticum Canticorum in Commentarii in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 4: In Ecclesiasten, Canticum
Canticorum, in Librum Sapientiae (Antwerp, 1657; Lyon/Paris, 1875) 357750.
Coccejus, Johannes
Cogitationes de Cantico Canticorum Salomonis ut Icone regni Christi (Amsterdam, 1665 [reprinted:
Opera omnia theologica, exegetica, didactia, polemica, philologica, Vol. 2: Commentarius in Librum
Ijobi, Psalmos, Proverbia, Ecclesiasten et Canticum Canticorum (Amsterdam,
3
1701) 565623]).
Bossuet, Jacques Bnigne
In Canticum Canticorum in Libri Salomonis: Proverbia, Ecclesiastes, Canticum Canticorum, Sapientia,
Ecclesiasticus, cum notis (Paris, 1693 [reprinted: Oeuvres compltes de Bossuet, Vol. 3 (Paris, 1863)
412428]).
Clericus, Joannis
Canticum Canticorum Salomonis in Veteris Testamenti Libri Hagiographi (Amsterdam, 1731) 717750.
Lowth, Robert
De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum Praelectiones (London, 1753) = Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the
Hebrews (tr. G. Gregory; London, 1787 [287308, Lecture 30: The Song of Solomon Not a Regular
Drama; 309344, Lecture 31: Of the Subject and Style of Solomons Song]).
Jacobi, Johann Friedrich
Das durch eine leichte und ungeknstelte Erklrung von seinen Vorwrfen gerettete Hohe Lied; nebst
einem Beweise, dass selbiges fr die Zeiten Salomons und seiner Nachfolger sehr lehrreich und heilsam,
und eines heiligen Dichters wrdig gewesen (Celle, 1772).
Herder, Johann Gottfried von
Lieder der Liebe: Die ltesten und schnsten aus dem Morgenlande (1778 [reprinted: J. G. Mller [ed.),
J. G. von Herders sammtliche Werke, Vol. 39 (Sammlung der vorzglichsten deutschen Classiker 138;
Carlsruhe, 1828) 1156]).
Lessing, J. T.
Eclogae regis Salomonis (Leipzig, 1779).
Hufnagel, Wilhelm Friedrich
Salomos Hohes Lied, geprft, bersetzt, erlutert (Erlangen, 1784).
Velthusen, Johann Caspar
Catena Cantilenarum in Salomonem. Duplici interpretatione, restrictiore altera, altera liberiore,
expressit, et modulationis hebraicae notas (Helmstadt, 1786).
Beyer, Johann Franz
Sammlung von Liedern der Liebe im Geschmack Salomos, neu bersetzt und mit Anmerkungen (Marburg,
1792).
Good, John Mason
Song of Songs: or, Sacred Idyls. Translated From The Original Hebrew with Notes Critical and
Explanatory (London, 1803).
Hug, Johann Leonhard von
Das Hohe Lied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung (Freyburg/Constanz, 1813).
Ewald, Heinrich Georg Augustus
Das Hohe Lied Salomos bersetzt und mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen und einem Anhang (Gttingen, 1826,
2
1867 [Das Hohe Lied bersetzt in Die Dichter des Alten Bundes, Vol. 2, 333426]).
Dpke, Johann Christian Carl
Philologisch-kritischer Commentar zum Hohen Lied Salomos (Leipzig, 1829).
Rosenmller, Ernst Friedrich Carl
Salomonis regis et sapientis quae perhibentur scripta, Vol. 2: Ecclesiasten et Canticum continens
(Scholia in Vetus Testamentum 9/2; Leipzig, 1830).
Magnus, E. J.
Kritische Bearbeitung und Erklrung des Hohen Liedes Salomos (Halle, 1842).
Delitzsch, Franz
Hoheslied und Koheleth (BC 4/5; Leipzig, 1851,
2
1875) = Commentary on the Song of Songs and
Ecclesiastes (tr. M. G. Easton; CFTL 4/54; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1891).
Hahn, H. A.
Das Hohe Lied von Salomo bersetzt und erklrt (Breslau, 1852).
Hengstenberg, Ernst Wilhelm
Das Hohelied Salomonis ausgelegt (Berlin, 1853 [cf. Prolegomena to the Song of Songs in
Hengstenberg, Ernst Wilhelm, Commentary on Ecclesiastes with Other Treatises (tr. D. W. Simon;
Philadelphia: Smith/English, 1860) 264305]).
Meier, Ernst
Das Hohe Lied in deutscher bersetzung, Erklrung, und kritischer Textausgabe (Tbingen, 1854).
Hitzig, Ferdinand
Das Hohe Lied (KEH 16; Leipzig, 1855).
Ginsburg, Christian David
The Song of Songs, Translated from the Original Hebrew with a Commentary, Historical and Critical
(London, 1857 [reprinted in The Song of Songs and Coheleth (LBS; New York: Ktav, 1970]).
Vaihinger, J. G.
Der Prediger und das Hohe Lied (Stuttgart, 1858).
Weissbach, F. E.
Das Hohe Lied Salomos (Leipzig, 1858).
Weiss, Benjamin
The Song of Songs Unveiled: A New Translation and Exposition (Edinburgh, 1859).

BC Biblischer Commentar ber das Alte Testament (ed. Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch)
CFTL Clarks Foreign Theological Library
KEH Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch
Renan, Ernest
Le Cantique des Cantiques, traduit de lhbreu avec une tude sur le plan, lge et le caractre du pome
(Paris, 1860).
Withington, Leonard
Solomons Song: Translated and Explained (Boston: J. E. Tilton, 1861).
Zckler, Otto
Das Hohelied (Theologische-homiletische Bibelwerk 13; Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1868) = The Song of
Solomon (tr. W. H. Green; A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical
10; New York: Charles Scribner, 1870).
Stuart, A. Moody
The Song of Songs: An Exposition of the Song of Solomon (Philadelphia: Wm. S. Rentoul, 1869).
Graetz, Heinrich Hirsch
Schir Ha-Schirim oder das Salomonische Hohelied (Wien, 1871; Breslau: W. Jacobsohn,
2
1885).
Schfer, Bernhard
Das hohe Lied (Mnster: Theissing, 1876).
Reuss, Eduard
Le Cantique (La Bible 5; Paris: Sandoz et Fischbacher, 1879).
Stickel, J. G.
Das Hohelied in seiner Einheit und dramatischen Gliederung (Berlin, 1888).
Oettli, Samuel
Das Hohelied in Wilhelm Volck and Samuel Oettli, Die poetischen Hagiographen (Buch Hiob,
Prediger Salomo, Hohelied und Klagelieder (KK A/8; Nrdlingen: C. H. Beck, 1889) 155198.
Gietmann, Gerardus
Commentarius in Ecclesiasten et Canticum Canticorum (Paris: Lethielleux, 1890).
Bruston, Charles
La Sulammite, mlodrame en cinq actes et en vers, traduit de lhbreu avec des notes explicatives et une
introduction sur le sens et la date du Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Fischbacher, 1891).
Rothstein, Johann Wilhelm
Das Hohelied (Halle, 1893).
Reuss, Eduard
Das Alte Testament bersetzt, eingeleitet und erlutert, Vol. 5: Die hebrische Poesie (Braunschweig,
1893) 315394.
Adeney, Walter F.
The Song of Solomon and the Lamentations of Jeremiah (The Expositors Bible; New York: A. C.
Armstrong, 1895).
Baethgen, Friedrich
Das Hoheslied in Ernst Kautzsch (ed.), Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments (Freiburg/Leipzig: J.
C. B. Mohr,
2
1896) 854860.
Budde, Karl
Das Hohelied erklrt in Karl Budde, Alfred Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die fnf Megillot (Das
Hohelied, Das Buch Ruth, Die Klagelieder, Der Prediger, Das Buch Esther) (KHC 6;
Freiburg/Leipzig/Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1898) IX48. [See also Budde (1910).]

KK Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testamentes (ed. Hermann
Strack and Otto Zckler)
Siegfried, Carl
Hoheslied in Wilhelm Frankenberg and Carl Siegfried, Die Sprche, Prediger und Hoheslied, bersetzt
und erklrt (HK 2/3; Gttingen: Vanden-hoeck & Ruprecht, 1898) 78126.
Harper, Andrew
The Song of Solomon, with Introduction and Notes (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1902,
2
1907).
Haupt, Paul
The Book of Canticles: A New Rhythmical Translation with Restoration of the Hebrew Text (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1902).
Haupt, Paul
Biblische Liebeslieder: Das sogenannte Hohelied Salomos unter steter Bercksichtigung der
bersetzungen Goethes und Herders (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1907).
Zapletal, Vincenz
Das Hohelied kritisch und metrisch untersucht (Freiburg, 1907).
Hontheim, Joseph
Das Hohe Lied bersetzt und erklrt (Biblische Studien 13/4; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1908).
Martin, George Currie
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs (The Century Bible 13; London: Caxton, 1908).
Joon, Paul
Le Cantique des Cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exgtique (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne,
2
1909).
Budde, Karl
Das Hohelied in Ernst Kautzsch and Alfred Bertholet (eds.), Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testament,
Vol. 2 (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],
3
1910,
4
1923) 390407. [See also Budde (1898).]
Staerk, Willi
Lyrik (Psalmen, Hoheslied und Verwandtes) (SAT 3/1; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911,
2
1920).
Cannon, William Walter
The Song of Songs, Edited as a Dramatic Poem (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1913).
Ehrlich, Arnold B.
Das Hohelied in Randglossen zur hebrischen Bible: Textkritisches, Sprachliches und Sachliches, Vol.
7 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1914) 118.
Dussaud, Ren
Le Cantique des Cantiques: Essai de reconstitution des sources du pome attribu Salomon
(Bibliothque historique des religions; Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1919).
Mowinckel, Sigmund
Sangenes Sang (Kristiania, 1919). [See also Mowinckel (1962).]
Jastrow, Morris, Jr.
The Song of Songs, Being a Collection of Love Lyrics of Ancient Palestine: A New Translation Based on a
Revised Text, together with the Origin, Growth, and Interpretation of the Songs (Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott, 1921).
Thilo, Martin
Das Hohelied, neu bersetzt und sthetisch-sittlich beurteilt (Bonn: A. Marcus/E. Webers, 1921).
Breuer, Raphael
Lied der Lieder bersetzt und erlutert (Frankfurt am Main: A. J. Hofmann, 1923).

KHC Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Alten Testament (ed. Karl Marti et al.)
HK Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (ed. Wilhelm Nowack)
SAT Die Schriften des Alten Testaments in Auswahl (ed. Hermann Gunkel et al.)
Kuhn, Gottfried
Erklrung des Hohen Liedes (Leipzig: A. Deichert [Werner Scholl], 1926).
Wittekindt, Wilhelm
Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung [Heinz Lefaire],
1926).
Miller, Athanasius
Das Hohe Lied bersetzt und erklrt (HS 6/3; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1927).
Ricciotti, Giuseppe
Il Cantico dei Cantici: Versione critica dal testo ebraico con introduzione e commento (Torino: Societ
editrice internazionale, 1928).
Gebhardt, Carl
Das Lied der Lieder: bertragen mit Einfhrung und Kommentar (Berlin: Philo, 1931).
Gemser, Berend
Spreuken, Vol. 2: Prediker en Hooglied van Salomo (Tekst en uitleg; Groningen: Wolters, 1931).
Kalt, Edmund
Das Hohe Lied (Paderborn, 1933).
Pouget, Guillaume; and Jean Guitton
Le Cantique des Cantiques (tB; Paris: Librairie Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1934,
2
1948) = The Canticle of
Canticles (tr. Joseph L. Lilly; The Catholic Scripture Library; New York: Declan X. McMullen, 1948).
Hazan, Albert
Le Cantique des Cantiques enfin expliqu (Paris: Librairie Lipschatz, 1936).
Oesterley, W. O. E.
The Song of Songs: The Authorized Version together with a New Translation, an Introduction and Notes
(London: Golden Cockerel, 1936).
Haller, Max
Das Hohe Lied in Max Haller and Kurt Galling, Die fnf Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr
[Paul Siebeck], 1940) 2146.
Buzy, Denis
Le Cantique des Cantiques, traduit et comment in Louis Pirot and Albert Clamer (eds.), La Sainte
Bible, Vol. 6 (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1941) 281363. [See also Buzy (1950).]
Lehrmann, Simon Maurice
The Song of Songs in Abraham Cohen (ed.), The Five Megilloth (Hindhead: Soncino, 1946,
2
1952).
Butte, A.
Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Pierre Seghers, 1947).
Waterman, Leroy
The Song of Songs, Translated and Interpreted as a Dramatic Poem (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan,
1948).
Fischer, Johann
Das Hohe Lied (Echter-Bibel 10; Wrzburg: Echter, 1949,
2
1952).
Bettan, Israel
The Five Scrolls (Cincinnati: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1950).
Buzy, Denis
Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1950). [See also Buzy (1941).]
Vaccari, Alberto

tB tudes bibliques
La Cantica in I Libri Poetici (La Sacra Bibbia 5/2; Firenze: Salani, 1950) 111129.
Robert, Andr
Le Cantique des Cantiques (La sainte Bible 18; Paris: Cerf, 1951,
2
1953). [See also Robert (1963).]
Aalders, Gerhard Charles
Het Hooglied vertaald en verklaard (COT 19; Kampen: N. V. Uitgeversmaatschappij [J. H. Kok], 1952).
Ambroggi, P. de
Cantico dei Canticidramma dellamore sacro (Rome: Paoline, 1952).
Bea, Augustinus
Canticum Canticorum Salomonis quod hebraice dicitur r Harm (SPIB 104; Rome: Pontifical
Biblical Institute, 1953).
Chouraqui, Andr; and Lucien-Marie de Saint-Joseph
Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Brouwer, 1953). [See also Chouraqui (1970).]
Feuillet, Andr
Le Cantique des Cantiques: tude de thologie biblique et reflexions sur une mthode dexgse (LD 10,
Paris: Cerf, 1953).
Saydon, P. P.
The Canticle of Canticles in Bernard Orchard et al. (eds.), A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1953) 496503.
Gordis, Robert
The Song of Songs: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary (Texts and Studies 20; New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1954 [revised in The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A
Study, Modern Translation and Commentary (New York: Ktav, 1974]).
Knight, George A. F.
Esther, Song of Songs, Lamentations (TBC; London: SCM, 1955).
Siegel, Abraham M.
The Sublime Songs of Love: A New Commentary on the Song of Songs and Related Essays (New York:
Exposition, 1955).
Bruno, Arvid
Das Hohe Lied, Das Buck Hiob: Eine rhythmische und textkritische Untersuchung nebst einer Einfhrung
in das Hohe Lied (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1956).
Meek, Theophile J.
The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegsis in George Arthur Buttrick et al. (eds.), The Interpreters
Bible, Vol. 5 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1956) 89148.
Schmkel, Hartmut
Heilige Hochzeit und Hoheslied (Abhandlungen fr die Kunde des Morgenlandes 32/1; Wiesbaden:
Deutsche Morgenlndische Gesellschaft [Franz Steiner], 1956).
Saussure, Jean de
Le Cantique de Lglise (Genve: Labor et Fides, 1957).

COT Commentaar op het Oude Testament
LD Lectio Divina
TBC Torch Bible Commentaries
Ringgren, Helmer
Das Hohe Lied in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied, Klagelieder, Das Buch Esther:
bersetzt und erklrt (ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958) 137.
Dhorme, douard
Cantique des Cantiques in La Bible de la Pleiade, Vol. 1/2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1959).
Schonfield, Hugh J.
The Song of Songs, Translated from the Original Hebrew with and Introduction and Explanations
(London: Elek, 1959).
Winandy, Jacques
Le Cantique des Cantiques: Pome damour mu en crit de sagesse (Bible et vie chrtienne; Tournai:
Castermann [Maredsous], 1960.
Murphy, Roland E.
The Book of Ecclesiastes and the Canticle of Canticles with a Commentary (New York: Paulist, 1961).
[See also Murphy (1968) and (1990).]
Lamparter, Helmut
Das Buch der Sehnsucht (BAT 16/2; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1962).
Mowinckel, Sigmund
Salomos hysang: Gammelhebraiske kjaerlighetsdikte (Oslo: O. Falch, 1962). [See also Mowinckel
(1919).]
Oudenrijn, Marcus Antonius van den
Het Hooglied uit de grondtekst vertaald en uitgelegd (BOT 8/3; Roermond: J. J. Romen & Zonen, 1962).
Rudolph, Wilhelm
Das Buch Ruth, Das Hohe Lied, Die Klagelieder (KAT 17/13; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus
[Gerd Mohn], 1962).
Schneider, Heinrich
Die Sprche Salomos, Das Buch des Predigers, Das Hohelied (HB 7/1; Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder,
1962).
Herbert, A. S.
The Song of Solomon in Matthew Black and H. H. Rowley (eds.), Peakes Commentary on the Bible
(London: Thomas Nelson, 1963) 468474.
Robert, Andr; and Raymond Tournay, with Andr Feuillet
Le Cantique des Cantiques: traduction et commentaire (tB; Paris: Librairie Lecoffre [J. Gabalda],
1963). [See also Robert (1951).]
Krinetzki, Leo [= Gnter]
Das Hohe Lied: Kommentar zu Gestalt und Kerygma eines alttestamentlichen Liebesliedes (KBANT;
Dsseldorf: Patmos, 1964). [See also Krinetzki (1980) and (1981).]
Rylaarsdam, J. Coert

BAT Die Botschaft des Alten Testaments
BOT De boeken van het Oude Testament
HB Herder Bibelkommentar: Die Heilige Schrift fr das Leben erklrt
The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Solomon (The Laymans Bible Commentary 10; Richmond: John
Knox, 1964).
Gerleman, Gillis
Ruth, Das Hohelied (BKAT 18; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1965).
Tournay, Raymond; and M. Nicola
Le Cantique des Cantiques: Commentaire abrg (Paris: Cerf, 1967).
Lys, Daniel
Le plus beau chant de la cration: Commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques (LD 51; Paris: Cerf, 1968).
Murphy, Roland E.
Canticle of Canticles in Raymond E. Brown et al. (eds.), The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968) 1/506510. [See also Murphy (1961) and (1990).]
Nolli, Gianfranco
Cantico dei Cantici (La Sacra Bibbia; Torino/Roma: Marietti, 1968).
Alonso Schkel, Luis
El Cantar de los Cantares (Los Libros Sagrados 10/1; Madrid: Ediciones cristiandad, 1969).
Wrthwein, Ernst
Das Hohelied in Ernst Wrthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger, Die fnf Megilloth (HAT 18
2
;
Tbingen, J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1969) 2571.
Chouraqui, Andr
Le Cantique des Cantiques suivi des Psaumes (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1970). [See also Chouraqui
(1953).]
Grad, A. -D.
Le vritable Cantique de Salomon: Introduction traditionelle et kabbalistique au Cantique des Cantiques
avec commentaires verset par verset prceds du texte hbreu et de sa traduction (Paris G. -P.
Maisonneuve et Larose, 1970).
Bunn, J. T.
Song of Solomon in The Broadman Bible Commentary, Vol. 5 (Nashville: Broadman, 1971) 128148.
Dentan, Robert C.
The Song of Solomon in Charles M. Laymon (ed.), The Interpreters One-Volume Commentary on the
Bible (Nashville/New York: Abingdon, 1971) 324328.
Loretz, Oswald
Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische Liebeslied. Untersuchungen zur Stichometrie und
Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45. Psalms (AOAT 14/1; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971).
Fuerst, Wesley J.
The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five Scrolls (CBC;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975).
Pope, Marvin H.
Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7; Garden City: Doubleday,
1977).
Krinetzki, Gnter [= Leo]
Hoheslied (NEchB; Wrzburg: Echter, 1980). [See also Krinetzki (1964) and (1981).

CBC The Cambridge Bible Commentary, New English Bible (ed. Peter R. Ackroyd et al.)
Krinetzki, Gnter [= Leo]
Kommentar zum Hohenlied: Bildsprache und Theologische Botschaft (BET 16; Frankfurt am Main/Bern:
Peter D. Lang, 1981). [See also Krinetzki (1964) and (1980).]
Mannucci, Valerio
Sinfonia dell Amore Sponsale: Il Cantico dei Cantici (Torino: Elle Di Ci, 1982).
Salvaneschi, Enrica
Cantico dei cantici: Interpretatio ludica (Genova: Melangolo, 1982).
Reese, James M.
The Book of Wisdom, Song of Songs (OTM 20; Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983).
Carr, G. Lloyd
The Song of Solomon: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Leicester/Downers Grove: Inter-
Varsity, 1984.
Fox, Michael V.
The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1985).
Ravasi, Gianfranco
Cantico dei Cantici (ed. David M. Turoldo; Milan: Paoline, 1985,
2
1986).
Davidson, Robert
Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon (Daily Study Bible; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986).
Goulder, Michael D.
The Song of Fourteen Songs (JSOTSup 36; Sheffield: JSOT, 1986).
Keel, Othmar
Das Hohelied (ZBAT 18; Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1986).
Falk, Marcia
Song of Songs in James L. Mays et al. (eds.), Harpers Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1988) 525528.
Murphy, Roland E.
Canticle of Canticles in Raymond E. Brown et al. (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1990) 462465. [See also Murphy (1961) and (1968).]
2. Books, Monographic Studies, and Articles (alphabetical listings in categories)
a/ Overviews and General Treatments of the Song
Broadribb, Donald
Thoughts on the Song of Solomon, Abr-Nahrain 3 (196162 [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963]) 1136.
Buzy, Denis
Un chef-doeuvre de posie pure: le Cantique des Cantiques in L.-H. Vincent (ed.), Mmorial Lagrange
(Paris: Librairie Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1940) 147162.
Childs, Brevard S.

BET Beitrge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie
OTM Old Testament Message: A Biblical Theological Commentary
TOTC Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries
JSOTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series
Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 568579 [Song of Songs].
Eissfeldt, Otto
The Old Testament: An Introduction (tr. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York/Evanston: Harper and Row, 1965
[Einleitung in das Alte Testament (
3
1964)]) 483491 [The Song of Songs].
Feuillet, Andr
Le Cantique des cantiques et la tradition biblique, La nouvelle revue thologique 74 (1952) 706733.
Fohrer, Georg
Introduction to the Old Testament, Initiated by Ernst Sellin (tr. David E. Green; Nashville/New York:
Abingdon, 1968 [Einleitung in das Alte Testament (
10
1965)]) 299303 [The Song of Solomon].
Friedlnder, Moritz
The Plot of the Song of Songs, JQR 6 (1894) 648655.
Gordis, Robert
A Wedding Song for Solomon, JBL 63 (1944) 263270.
Gordis, Robert
The Song of Songs in Moshe Davis (ed., Mordechai M. Kaplan Jubilee Volumes, Vol. 2 (New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1953) 281325; reprinted in Gordis, Robert, Poets, Prophets,
and Sages: Essays in Biblical Interpretation (Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1971) 351398.
Gottwald, Norman K.
Song of Songs, IDB, Vol. 4 (RZ), 420426.
Haupt, Paul
The Book of Canticles, AJSL 18 (1902) 193245; 19 (1902) 132.
Hulst, Alexander R.
Hoheslied, I. Das at. Buch, RGG
3
, Vol. 3, 428430.
Lestre, Henri
Cantique des cantiques, DB, Vol. 2 (C-F), 185199.
Murphy, Roland E.
Song of Songs, IDBSup, 836838.
Murphy, Roland E.
Towards a Commentary on the Song of Songs, CBQ 39 (1977) 482496.
Rothstein, Johann Wilhelm
Song of Songs in James Hastings (ed.), A Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 4 (Pleroma-Zuzim) (New York:
Charles Scribners; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1907) 589597.

JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
IDB The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, 4 Vols. (ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al.; New
York/Nashville: Abingdon, 1962).
AJSL American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures
DB Dictionnaire de la Bible, 5 Vols. (ed. F. Vigouroux and Louis Pirot; Paris: Letouzey et An, 1899
1928).
IDBSup The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Supplementary Volume (ed. Keith Crim et al.; Nashville:
Abingdon, 1976).
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
Schoville, Keith N.; and Bathja Bayer
Song of Songs, EncJud, Vol. 15 (SmUn), 144152.
Segal, Morris [Moshe] Hirsch
The Song of Songs, VT 12 (1962) 470490; rev. in Segal, Morris [Moshe] Hirsch, The Pentateuch, its
composition and its authorship, and other Biblical Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1967)
221241.
Tournay, Raymond Jacques
Quand Dieu parle aux hommes le langage de lamour. tudes sur le Cantique des cantiques (CRB 21;
Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982) = Word of God, Song of Love (tr. E. Crowley; New York: Paulist, 1989).
b/ Text and Language
Albright, William Foxwell
Archaic Survivals in the Text of Canticles in D. Winton Thomas and W. D. McHardy (eds.), Hebrew
and Semitic Studies Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 17.
Bloch, Joshua
A Critical Examination of the Text of the Syriac Version of the Song of Songs, AJSL 38 (192122)
103139.
Delcor, Matthias
Le Texte Hbreu du Cantique de Siracide LI et ss. et les Anciennes Versions, Textus 6 (1968) 2747.
Driver, Godfrey Rolles
Supposed Arabisms in the Old Testament, JBL 55 (1936) 101120.
Hebrew Notes on Song of Songs and Lamentations in Walter Baumgartner et al. (eds.), Festschrift
fr Alfred Bertholet zum 80. Geburtstag (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck] 1950) 134146.
Lice in the Old Testament, PEQ 106 (1974) 159160.
Emerton, John A., and D. J. Lane (eds.)
Song of Songs in The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version, Vol. II/5 (Leiden: E.
J. Brill, 1979).
Euringer, Sebastien
Die Bedeutung der Peschitto fr die Textkritik des Hohenliedes in O. Bardenhewer (ed.), Biblische
Studien, Vol. 6 (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1901) 115128.
Euringer, Sebastien
Ein unkanonischer Text des Hohenliedes (Cnt 8:1520*) in der armenischen Bibel, ZAW 33 (1913)
272294.

EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica, 16 Vols. (ed. Cecil Roth et al.; Jerusalem: Keter, 19711972).
rev. revision/revised by
PEQ Palestine Exploration Quarterly
*
14
Euringer, Sebastien
Schpferische Exegese im thiopischen Hohenliede, Bib 17 (1936) 327344, 479500; 20 (1939) 27
37.
Euringer, Sebastien
Ein thiopisches Scholienkommentar zum Hohenliede, Bib 18 (1937) 257276, 369382.
Gordis, Robert
The Root in the Song of Songs, JBL 88 (1969) 203204; reprinted in Gordis, Robert, The Word
and the Book: Studies in Biblical Language and Literature (New York: Ktav, 1976) 311312.
Hamp, Vincenz
Zur Textkritik am Hohenlied, BZ N.F. 1 (1957) 197214.
Hirschberg, Harris H.
Some Additional Arabic Etymologies in Old Testament Lexicography, VT 11 (1961) 373385.
Hurwitz, Avi
The Chronological Significance of Aramaisms in Biblical Hebrew, IEJ 18 (1968) 324340.
Kbert, Raimund
Syrische Fragmente eines griechischen Kommentars zum Hohen Lied, Bib 48 (1967) 111114.
Scholia in locos quosdam Cantici canticorum, Bib 35 (1954) 268270.
Sigwalt, C.
Das Lied der Lieder in seiner ursprnglichen Textordnung, BZ 9 (1911) 2753.
Vaccari, Alberto
Note critiche ed esegetiche, Bib 28 (1927) 394406 [398399, Cant 4, 8; 399401, Cant 5, 12].
Vaccari, Alberto
Latina Cantici canticorum versio a s. Hieronymo ad Graecam Hexaplarem emendata, Bib 36 (1955)
258260.
Vaccari, Alberto
Cantici Canticorum latine a s. Hieronymo recensiti emendatio, Bib 44 (1963) 7475.
Vattioni, Francesco
Bricole di versioni latine del Cantico dei Cantici, RCT 3 (1978) 353358.
Wagner, Max
Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebrisch (BZAW 96;
Berlin: Alfred Tpelmann, 1966).
Wilmart, A.
Lancienne version latine du Cantique IIII, Revue bndictine 23 (1911) 1136.
Zolli, Eugenio

Bib Biblica
IEJ Israel Exploration Journal
Cant Canticles/Song of Songs
RCT Revista Catalana de Teologia
In margine al Cantico dei Cantici, Bib 21 (1940) 273282.
c/ Canonization and History of Interpretation
Baer, Y.
Israel, the Christian Church, and the Roman Empire, from the time of Septimus Severus to the Edict of
Toleration of C.E. 313 in A. Fuks and I. Halpern (eds.), Studies in History (SH 7; Jerusalem:
Magnes/Hebrew University, 1961) 79149.
Bardy, Gustave
Les traditions juives dans loeuvre dOrigne, RB 34 (1925) 217252.
Bardy, Gustave
Marie et le Cantique chez les Pres, BVC 7 (1954) 3241.
Bentzen, Aage
Remarks on the Canonization of the Song of Solomon in Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen (Hauniae:
Einar Munksgaard, 1953) 4147.
Beumer, Johannes
Die marianische Deutung des Hohen Liedes in der Frhscholastik, ZKT 76 (1954) 41439.
Bonsirven, Joseph
Exgse rabbinique et exgse paulinienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1939).
Bonwetsch, Gottlieb Nathanael
Studien zu den Kommentaren Hippolyts zum Buche Daniel und zum Hohenlied (TU 16/2 [N. F. 1];
Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1897).
Bonnardire, A. M. la
Le Cantique des cantiques dans loeuvre de saint Augustin, Revue des tudes Augustiniennes 1 (1955)
225237.
Bornkamm, Heinrich
Luther und das Alte Testament (Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1948) = Luther and the Old
Testament (tr. Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch; ed. Victor I. Gruhn; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969).
Brot, Isak
De Allegorische Uitlegging van het Hooglied voornamelijk in Nederland (Zuijderduijn-Woerden, 1971).
Brunet, A. M.
Thodore de Mopsueste et le Cantique des cantiques, tudes et recherches 9 (1955) 155170.
Buzy, Denis
Lallgorie matrimoniale de Jahv et dIsral et le Cantique des cantiques, RB 52 (1944) 7790.
Cambe, M.
Linfluence du Cantique des cantiques sur le Nouveau Testament, RThom 62 (1962) 526.
Cantwell, Laurence
The Allegory of the Canticle of Canticles, Scr 16 (1964) 7693.
Carr, G. Lloyd

RB Revue biblique
BVC Bible et vie chrtienne
ZKT Zeitschrift fr katholische Theologie
RThom Revue thomiste
Scr Scripture
The Old Testament Love Songs and Their Use in the New Testament, JETS 24 (1981) 97105.
Cavallera, F., A. Cabassut, and M. Olpe-Galliard
Cantique des cantiques. II: Histoire de linterprtation spirituelle in Marcel Viller et al. (eds.),
Dictionnaire de Spiritualit, Vol. 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1953) 93109.
Chappuzeau, Gertrud
Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes durch Hippolyt von Rom, JAC 19 (1976) 4581.
Chappuzeau, Gertrud
Die Exegese von Hohelied 1, 2a.b und 7 bei den Kirchenvtern von Hippolyt bis Bernhard, JAC 18
(1975) 90143.
Chnevert, Jacques
Paris: Brouwer; Montreal: Bellarmin, 1969).
Cohen, Gershon D.
The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality (The Samuel Friedland Lectures; New York:
Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1966); reprinted in Sid Z. Leiman (ed.), The Canon and
Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (New York: Ktav, 1974) 262282.
Dubarle, Andr-Marie
Le Cantique des Cantiques dan lexgse rcente in Charles Hauret (ed.), Aux grands carrefours de la
rvlation et de lexgse de lancien testament (Recherches bibliques 8; Paris: Brouwer, 1967) 139152.
Habersaat, Karl
Glossare und Paraphrasen zum Hohenlied: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der jdisch-deutschen Hohelied-
Uebersetzungen, Bib 17 (1936) 348358.
Hanson, R. P. C.
Allegory and Event: A Study of the Sources and Significance of Origens Interpretation of Scripture
(London: SCM; Richmond: John Knox, 1959).
Herr, Moshe David
Song of Songs Rabbah, EncJud, Vol. 15 (SmUn), 152154.
Herde, Rosemarie
Das Hohelied in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum 12 Jahrhundert (Mnchener Beitrge
zur Medivistik und Renaissance-Forschung [Estratto da Studi medievali 3/8 (1967) 9571073];
Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull alto medioeva, 1968).
Kamin, Sarah
A Thirteenth Century Latin Version of Rashis Commentary to the Song of Songs [Hebrew] Tarbiz 55
(198586) 381411.
Kimelman, Reuven
Rabbi Yoanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation, HTR
73 (1980) 567595.
Kuhl, Curt
Das Hohelied und seine Deutung, TRu 9 (1937) 137167.
Lachs, Samuel Tobias

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
JAC Jahrbuch fr Antike und Christentum
HTR Harvard Theological Review
TRu Theologische Rundschau
Prolegomena to Canticles Rabba, JQR N.S. 55 (196465) 235255.
The Proems of Canticles Rabba, JQR N.S. 56 (196566) 225239.
Lacocque, Andr
Linsertion du Cantique des Cantiques dans le Canon, RHPR 42 (1962) 3844.
Lauterbach, Jacob Z.
Shir ha-Shirim (Canticles) Rabbah, JE, Vol. 11, 291292.
Leclercq, Jean
The Love of Learning and the Desire of God: A Study of Monastic Culture (tr. Catherine Misrahi; New
York: Fordham University, 1961).
Leclercq, Jean
Monks on Marriage: A Twelfth-Century View (New York: Seabury, 1982).
Lerch, David
Hoheslied, II. Auslegungsgeschichtlich, RGG
3
, Vol. 3, 430431.
Lerch, David
Zur Geschichte der Auslegung des Hohenliedes, ZTK 54 (1957) 257277.
Littledale, Richard Frederick
A Commentary on the Song of Songs From Ancient and Medieval Sources (London, 1869).
Loewe, Raphael
Apologetic Motifs in the Targum to the Song of Songs in Alexander Altmann (ed.), Biblical Motifs:
Origins and Transformations (Philip W. Lown Institute of Advanced Studies, Brandeis University,
Studies and Texts 3; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1966) 159196.
Lubac, Henri de
Mditation sur lglise (Collection Theologique, tudes publies sous la direction de la Facult de
Thologie S.J. de Lyon-Fourvire 27; Paris: Montaigne, 1953).
Lubac, Henri de
The Sources of Revelation (tr. Luke ONeill; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968).
Margolis, Max L.
How the Song of Songs Entered the Canon in Wilfred H. Schoff (ed.), The Song of Songs: A
Symposium (Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 917.
Marocco, Giuseppe
Alcun studi recenti sul Cantico dei Cantici, RivB 35 (1987) 6977.
McNeil, Brian
Avircius and the Song of Songs, Vigiliae Christianae 31 (1977) 2334.
Montgomery, James A.

N.S. New Series
RHPR Revue dhistoire et de philosophie religieuses
JE The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 Vols. (ed. Isidore Singer et al.; New York/London: Funk and Wagnalls,
19011916).
RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 7 Vols. (ed. Hans F. von Campenhausen et al.; Tbingen: J.
C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],
3
19571965).
ZTK Zeitschrift fr Theologie und Kirche
RivB Rivista Biblica
The Song of Songs in Early and Mediaeval Christian Use in Wilfred H. Schoff (ed.), The Song of
Songs: A Symposium (Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 1830.
Murphy, Roland E.
Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 111.
Murphy, Roland E.
Patristic and Medieval ExegesisHelp or Hindrance? CBQ 43 (1981) 505516.
Murphy, Roland E.
History of Exegesis as a Hermeneutical Tool: The Song of Songs, BTB 16 (1986) 8791.
Ohly, Friedrich
Hohelied-Studien. Grundzge einer Geschichte der Hohenliedauslegung des Abendlandes bis um 1200
(Schriften der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitt Frankfurt am
Main, Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe 1, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1958).
Parente, Paschal P.
The Canticle of Canticles in Mystical Theology, CBQ 6 (1944) 142158.
Perella, Nicholas James
The Kiss Sacred and Profane: An Interpretative History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-Erotic
Themes (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California, 1969).
Phipps, William E.
The Plight of the Song of Songs, JAAR 42 (1974) 82100.
Pirot, Louis
Loeuvre exgtique de Thodore de Mopsueste, 350428 aprs J.-C. (SPIB; Rome: Pontifical Biblical
Institute, 1913).
Riedel, Wilhelm
Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig: A.
Deichert, 1898).
Riedlinger, Helmut
Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters (Beitrge zur
Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. TU 38/3; Mnster: Aschendorf, 1958).
Rowley, Harold H.
The Interpretation of the Song of Songs, JTS 38 (1937) 337363; rev. in Rowley, Harold H, The
Servant of the Lord and Other Essays on the Old Testament (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
2
1965) 195245.
Rudolph, Wilhelm
Das Hohe Lied im Kanon, ZAW 59 (194243) 189199.
Salfeld, Siegmund
Das Hohelied Salomos bei den jdischen Erklrern des Mittelalters (Berlin: Benzian, 1879).
Scheper, George L.
The Spiritual Marriage: The Exegetic History and Literary Impact of the Song of Songs in the Middle
Ages (Ph.D. dissertation; Princeton University, 1971).
Scheper, George L.
Reformation Attitudes towards Allegory and the Song of Songs, PMLA 89 (1974) 551562.
Shmueli, E.
Song of Songs ExegesisWorlds of Symbols [Hebrew] BMik 23 (1978) 272288.

BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
PMLA Proceedings of the Modern Language Association
Sibinga, J. Smit
Une citation du Cantique dans la Secunda Petri, RB 73 (1966) 107118.
Simke, Heinz
Cant. 1, 7f. in altchristlicher Auslegung, TZ 18 (1962) 256267.
Smalley, Beryl
The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952).
Staerk, Willi
Warum steht das Hohe Lied im Kanon? Theologischer Bltter 16 (1937) 289291.
Schwarz, Leo W.
On Translating the Song of Songs, Judaism 13 (1964) 6476.
Timm, Hermann (ed.)
Das Hohe Lied Salomos: Nachdichtungen und bersetzungen aus sieben Jahrhunderten (Insel
Taschenbuch 600; Frankfurt: Insel, 1982).
Urbach, Ephraim E.
The Homiletical Interpretations of the Sages and the Expositions of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish-
Christian Disputation in Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy (eds.), Studies in Aggadah and Folk-Literature
(SH 22; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1971) 247275.
Vaccari, Alberto
Il Cantico dei Cantici nelle recenti publicazioni, Bib 9 (1928) 443457.
Vajda, Georges
Lamour de Dieu dan la thologie juive du Moyen Age (tudes de Philosophie mdivale 46; Paris:
Librairie philosophique [J. Vrin], 1957).
Vulliaud, Paul
Le Cantique des cantiques daprs la tradition juive (Paris: Universitaires de France, 1925).
Welserheimb, L.
Das Kirchenbild der griechischen Vterkommentare zum Hohen Lied, ZKT 70 (1948) 393449.
Winandy, Jacques
Le Cantique des Cantiques et le Nouveau Testament, RB 71 (1964) 161190.
Wrthwein, Ernst
Zum Verstndnis des Hohenliedes, TRu 32 (1967) 177212.
d/ Near Eastern Sources and Comparative Studies
Carr, G. Lloyd
Is the Song of Songs a Sacred Marriage Drama? JETS 22 (1979) 103114.
Cooper, Jerrold S.
New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 90 (1971) 157162.
Davis, Virginia L.
Remarks on Michael V. Foxs The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 111114.
Dornseiff, Franz
gyptische Liebeslieder, Hohes Lied, Sappho, Theokrit, ZDMG 90 (1936) 588601.
Ebeling, Erich
Ein Hymnenkatalog aus Assur, Berliner Beitrge zur Keilschriftforschung 1/3 (1923) 19.
Ebeling, Erich
Das Hohelied im Lichte der assyrischen Forschungen, ZDMG 78 (1924) LXVIIILXIX.

BMik Beth Mikra
TZ Theologische Zeitschrift
ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlndischen Gesellschaft
Ebeling, Erich
Liebeszauber im alten Orient (Mitteilungen der Altorientalischen Gesellschaft 1/1; Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer,
1925).
Foster, John L.
Love Songs of the New Kingdom (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1974).
Fox, Michael V.
The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 101109.
Fox, Michael V.
Love in the Love Songs, JEA 67 (1981) 181182.
Fox, Michael V.
The Entertainment Song Genre in Egyptian Literature in Sarah Israelit Groll (ed.), Egyptological
Studies (SH 26; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1982) 268316.
Fox, Michael V.
Love, Passion, and Perception in Israelite and Egyptian Love Poetry, JBL 102 (1983) 219228.
Fox, Michael V.
Four Ancient Egyptian Love Songs [Hebrew] Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near
Eastern Studies 78 (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Israel Bible Society [M. Newman], 198384) 187215.
Halvy, Joseph
Le Cantique des cantiques et le mythe dOsiris-Hetep, Revue smitique 14 (1922) 248255.
Held, Moshe
A Faithful Lover in an Old Babylonian Dialogue, JCS 15 (1961) 126; 16 (1962) 3739 [Addenda et
Corrigenda].
Hermann, Alfred
Beitrge zur Erklrung der gyptischen Liebesdichtung in Otto Firchow (ed.), gyptologische Studien
(Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Institut fr Orientforschung 29; Berlin: Akademie-
Verlag, 1955) 118139.
Hermann, Alfred
Altgyptische Liebesdichtung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959).
Hyde, Walter Woodburn
Greek Analogies to the Song of Songs in Wilfred H. Schoff (ed.), The Song of Songs: A Symposium
(Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 3142.
Jacobsen, Thorkild
The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion (New Haven/London: Yale University,
1976) 2373 [Fourth Millennium Metaphors. The Gods as Providers: Dying Gods of Fertility].
Jacobsen, Thorkild
The Harps That Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1987).
Kramer, Samuel Noah
The Biblical Song of Songs and the Sumerian Love Songs, Expedition 5 (1962) 2531.
Kramer, Samuel Noah
Cuneiform Studies and the History of Literature: The Sumerian Sacred Marriage Texts, PAPS 107
(1963) 485516.
Kramer, Samuel Noah
The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer (Bloomington/London:
Indiana University, 1969) 85106 [The Sacred Marriage and Solomons Song of Songs].

JEA Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
JCS Journal of Cuneiform Studies
Lambert, W. G.
Divine Love Lyrics from Babylon, JSS 4 (1959) 115.
Lambert, W. G.
The Problem of the Love Lyrics in Hans Goedicke and J. J. M. Roberts (eds.), Unity and Diversity:
Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University, 1975) 98135.
Meek, Theophile J.
Canticles and the Tammuz Cult, AJSL 39 (192223) 114.
Meek, Theophile J.
Babylonian Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 43 (1924) 245252.
Meek, Theophile J.
The Song of Songs and the Fertility Cult in W. H. Schoff (ed.), The Song of Songs: A Symposium
(Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 4869.
Mller, W. Max
Die Liebespoesie der alten gypter (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899).
Neuschotz de Jassy, Oswald
Le Cantique des Cantiques et le mythe dOsiris-Hetep (Paris: C. Reinwald, 1914).
Perugini, Cesare
Cantico dei Cantici e lirica damore sumerica, RivB 31 (1983) 2141.
Ringgren, Helmer
Hohes Lied und hieros Gamos, ZAW 65 (1953) 300302.
Sasson, Jack M.
A Further Cuneiform Parallel to the Song of Songs? ZAW 85 (1973) 359360.
Schmidt, Nathaniel
Is Canticles an Adonis Litany? JAOS 46 (1926) 154164.
Schmkel, Hartmut
Hoheslied und altorientalische Gtterhochzeit, Forschungen und Fortschritte 27 (1953) 110113.
Schoff, Wilfred H.
The Offering Lists in the Song of Songs and their Political Significance in Schoff, Wilfred H. (ed.), The
Song of Songs: A Symposium (Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 80120.
Schott, Siegfried
Altgyptische Liebeslieder (Zrich: Artemis, 1950) = Les chants damour de lgypte ancienne (tr. Paul
Krieger; Lorient ancien illustr; Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1956).
Schoville, Keith N.
The Impact of the Ras Shamra Texts on the Study of the Song of Songs (Ph.D. dissertation; University of
Wisconsin, 1969).
Seiple, William G.
Theocritean Parallels to the Song of Songs, AJSL 19 (190203) 108115.
Shashar, M.
Song of Songs and Bedouin Love Poetry [Hebrew] BMik 31 (198586) 360370.
Stephan, Stephen H.
Modern Palestinian Parallels to the Song of Songs, JPOS 2 (1922) 199278.
Suys, mile
Les chants damour du papyrus Chester Beatty I, Bib 13 (1932) 209227.
Wetzstein, J. G.

JSS Journal of Semitic Studies
JPOS Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society
Die syrische Dreschtafel, Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie 5 (1873) 270302 [cf. also Appendix. Remarks on
the Song by Dr. J. G. Wetzstein in Delitzsch, 162176].
White, John Bradley
A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian Literature (SBLDS 38;
Missoula: Scholars, 1978).
Yamauchi, Edwin M.
Tammuz and the Bible, JBL 84 (1965) 283290.
e/ Literary Structure, Genre, Character, and Aesthetics
Alonso Schkel, Luis
Estudios de Potica Hebrea (Barcelona: Flors, 1963).
Angnieux, Joseph
Structure du Cantique des Cantiques en chants encadrs par des refrains alternants, ETL 41 (1965) 96
142.
Angnieux, Joseph
Les trois portraits du Cantique des Cantiques. tude de critique littraire, ETL 42 (1966) 582596.
Angnieux, Joseph
Le Cantique des Cantiques en huit chants refrains alternants. Essai de reconstitution du texte primitif
avec une introduction et des notes critiques, ETL 44 (1968) 87140.
Buzy, Denis
La composition littraire du Cantique des cantiques, RB 49 (1940) 169194.
Carniti, Cecilia
Lunit letteraria del Cantico dei Cantici, BeO 13 (1971) 97106.
Exum, J. Cheryl
A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song of Songs, ZAW 85 (1973) 4779.
Falk, Marcia
Love Lyrics from the Bible: A Translation and Literary Study of the Song of Songs (BLS 4; Almond:
Sheffield, 1982).
Freedman, David Noel
Prolegomenon in George B. Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry (LBS; New York: Ktav, 1972) viilvi;
reprinted in Freedman, David Noel, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry
(Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980) 2350.
Gonzlez, Angel
El lenguaje de la naturaleza en el Cantar de los Cantares, EstBb 25 (1966) 241282.
Grober, S. F.
The hospitable lotus: A cluster of metaphors. An inquiry into the problem of textual unity in the Song of
Songs, Semitics 9 (1984) 86112.
Horst, Friedrich

ETL Ephemerides theologicae lovanienses
BeO Bibbia e Oriente
BLS Bible and Literature Series
Die Formen des althebrischen Liebesliedes in Orientalistische Studien, Enno Littmann zu seinem 60.
Geburtstag berreicht (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1935) 4354; reprinted in Horst, Friedrich, Gottes Rechte:
Gesammelte Studien zum Recht im Alten Testament (ed. Hans Walter Wolff; TB 12; Mnchen: Chr.
Kaiser, 1961) 176187.
Keel, Othmar
Deine Blicke sind Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes (SBS 114115; Stuttgart: Katholisches
Bibelwerk, 1984).
Kessler, R.
Some Poetical and Structural Features of the Song of Songs (Leeds University Oriental Society,
Monograph Series 8; Leeds, 1957).
Landsberger, Franz
Poetic Units Within the Song of Songs, JBL 73 (1954) 203216.
Landy, Francis
The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden, JBL 98 (1979) 513528.
Landy, Francis
Beauty and the Enigma: An Enquiry into Some Interrelated Episodes of the Song of Songs, JSOT 17
(1980) 55106.
Landy, Francis
Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (BLS; Sheffield: Almond, 1983).
Mller, Hans-Peter
Vergleich und Metapher im Hohenlied (OBO 56; Freiburg Schweiz: Universittsverlag; Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984).
Murphy, Roland E.
The Structure of the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 11 (1949) 381391.
Murphy, Roland E.
Form-Critical Studies in the Song of Songs, Int 27 (1973) 413422.
Murphy, Roland E.
The Unity of the Song of Songs, VT 29 (1979) 436443.
Murphy, Roland E.
Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Esther (FOTL 13; Grand Rapids:
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Ringgren, Helmer
Die Volksdichtung und das Hohe Lied, UU 5 (1952) 82118.
Robert, Andr
Le genre littraire du Cantique des Cantiques, RB 52 (1944) 192213.
Segert, Stanislav

TB Theologische Bcherei
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
OBO Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis (ed. Othmar Keel et al.)
Int Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology
UU Uppsala Universitets rsskrift
Die Versform des Hohenliedes in Felix Taver et al. (eds.), Charisteria Orientalia praecipue ad Persiam
pertientia: Ioanni Rypka sacrum (Prague: eskoslovensk Akademie, 1956) 285299.
Shea, William H.
The Chiastic Structure of the Song of Songs, ZAW 92 (1980) 378396.
Snaith, Norman
The Song of Songs: The Dances of the Virgins, AJSL 50 (193334) 129142.
Soulen, Richard N.
The Wafs of the Song of Songs and Hermeneutic, JBL 86 (1967) 183190.
Webster, Edwin C.
Pattern in the Song of Songs, JSOT 22 (1982) 7393.
f/ Meaning and Theological Significance
Adinolfi, Marco
La coppia nel Cantico dei Cantici, BeQ 22 (1980) 329.
Audet, Jean-Paul
Le sens du Cantique des cantiques, RB 62 (1955) 197221 [summary: The Meaning of the Canticle of
Canticles, Theology Digest 5 (1957) 8892].
Audet, Jean-Paul
Love and Marriage in the Old Testament [tr. F. Burke] Scr 10 (1958) 6583.
Buzy, Denis
Le Cantique des Cantiques. Exgse allgorique ou parabolique? RSR 39 (1951) 99114.
Cook, Albert Spaulding
The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1968).
Dubarle, Andr-Marie
Lamour humain dans le Cantique des cantiques, RB 61 (1954) 6786.
Freehof, Solomon B.
The Song of Songs: A General Suggestion, JQR N. S. 39 (194849) 397402.
Feuillet, Andr
Le drame damour du Cantique des cantiques remis en son contexte prophtique, Nova et Vetera 62
(1987) 81127; 63 (1988) 81136.
Gaster, Theodor H.
What the Song of Songs Means, Com 13 (1952) 316322.
Gollwitzer, Helmut
Das hohe Lied der Liebe (Kaiser Traktate; Mnchen: Chr. Kaiser, 1978) = Song of Love: A Biblical
Understanding of Sex (tr. Keith Crim; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979).
Grelot, Pierre
Le sens du Cantique des cantiques, RB 71 (1964) 4256.
Kearney, Peter J.
Marriage and Spirituality in the Song of Songs, BT 25 (1987) 144149.
Die Liebe hrt nie auf (Werkhefte zur Bibelarbeit 4; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1964).
Die erotischen Psychologie des Hohen Liedes, TQ 150 (1970) 404416.

RSR Recherches de science religieuse
Com Commentary
BT The Bible Today
TQ Theologische Quartalschrift
Retractationes zu frheren Arbeiten uber das Hohelied, Bib 52 (1971) 176189.
Laurin, Robert B.
The Life of True Love: The Song of Songs and Its Modern Message, Christianity Today 6 (1962)
10621063.
Leahy, F. S.
The Song of Solomon in Pastoral Teaching, Evangelical Quarterly 27 (1955) 205213.
Loretz, Oswald
Zum Problem des Eros im Hohenlied, BZ N.F. 8 (1964) 191216.
Loretz, Oswald
Die theologische Bedeutung des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 10 (1966) 2943.
Lys, Daniel
Le Cantique des cantiques: Pour une sexualit non-ambigu, Lumire et Vie (1979) 3953.
Maccoby, Hyam
Sex According to the Song of Songs: Review of Marvin Pope, The Song of Songs, Com 67 (1979) 53
59.
Mller, Hans-Peter
Die Iyrische Reproduktion des Mythischen im Hohenlied, ZTK 73 (1976) 2341.
Murphy, Roland E.
Interpreting the Song of Songs, BTB 9 (1979) 99105.
Murphy, Roland E.
A Biblical Model of Human Intimacy: The Song of Songs in Andrew Greeley (ed.), The Family in
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Nowell, Irene
A Celebration of Love, BT 25 (1987) 140143.
Vom Sinne des Hohen Liedes, Divus Thomas 31 (1953) 257280.
Pope, Marvin H.
Response to Sasson on the Sublime Song, Maarav 2 (1980) 207214.
Ramlot, M. L.
Le Cantique des cantiques: une flamme de Yahve, RThom 64 (1964) 239259.
Raurell, Frederic
El plaer ertic en el Cntic dels Cntics, RCT 6 (1981) 257298.
Sadgrove, M.
The Song of Songs as Wisdom Literature in E. A. Livingstone (ed.), Studia Biblica 1978, I: Papers on
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Sasson, Jack M.
On M. H. Popes Song of Songs [AB 7c], Maarav 1 (1979) 177196.
Sasson, Jack M.
Unlocking the Poetry of Love in the Song of Songs, Bible Review 1 (1985) 1019.
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Zur kultischen Deutung des Hohenliedes, ZAW 64 (1952) 148155.
Segal, Benjamin J.
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Redeemed].

DD Dor le Dor
Zolli, Israele
Visionen der Liebe im Hohenlied, Wiener Zeitschrift fr die Kunde des Morgenlandes 51 (1948) 34
37.
g/ Particular Passages and Issues
Bar Ilan, Meir
Text Criticism, Erotica and Magic in the Song of Songs [Hebrew] Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and
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[English summary: xvixvii].
Bartina, Sebastin
Los cuatro vientos del Cantar y los cuatro ros del Pariso (Cant 4,16), EstBib 31 (1972) 337342.
Bartina, Sebastin
Los montes de Bter (Cant 2,17), EstBib 31 (1972) 435444.
Bishop, Eric F. F.
Palestiniana in Canticulis, CBQ 29 (1967) 2030.
Brenner, Athalya
Aromatics and Perfumes in the Song of Songs, JSOT 25 (1983) 7581.
Brenner, Athalya
dd a wdm (Cant 5:1011*) [Hebrew] BMik 27 (198182) 168173.
Charbel, A.
Come tradurre ekl hak-kfer (Cant. 1,14)? BeO 20 (1978) 6164.
Crim, Keith R.
Your neck is like the Tower of David: The Meaning of a Simile in the Song of Solomon 4:4*, BTr 22
(1971) 7074.
Dahood, Mitchell
Canticle 7,9 and UT 52,61: A Question of Method, Bib 57 (1976) 109110.
Exum, J. Cheryl
Asseverative al in Canticles 1,6? Bib 62 (1981) 416419.
Feuillet, Andr

OBT Overtures to Biblical Theology (ed. Walter Brueggemann and John R. Donahue)
EstBib Estudios Bblicos
*
10
11
*
4
of warriors.
BTr The Bible Translator
Le Cantique des Cantiques et IApocalypse, RSR 49 (1961) 321353.
Feuillet, Andr
La formule dappartenance mutuelle (II,16) et les interprtations divergentes du Cantique des
Cantiques, RB 68 (1961) 538.
Feuillet, Andr
Einige scheinbare Widersprche des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 8 (1964) 216239.
Fox, Michael V.
Scholia to Canticles (i 4b, ii 4, i 4ba, iv 3, v 8, vi 12), VT 33 (1983) 199206.
Garbini, Giovanni
La datazione del Cantico dei Cantici, RSO 56 (1982) 3946.
Gaster, Theodor H.
Canticles i.4, Expository Times 72 (196061) 195.
Gerleman, Gillis
Die Bildersprache des Hohenliedes und die altgyptische Kunst, ASTI 1 (1962) 2430.
Grg, Manfred
Die Snfte Salomos nach HL 3,9f., Biblische Notizen: Beitrge zur exegetischen Diskussion 18 (1982)
1525.
Goitein, Shlomo Dov
Ayumm Kannidglt (Song of Songs VI.10) Splendid like the Brilliant Stars, JSS 10 (1965) 220
221.
Goodspeed, Edgar J.
The Shulammite, AJSL 50 (193334) 102104.
Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H.
Philologische Miszellen zu den Qumrantexten, RQ 2 (195960) 4351 [4648, 4. Die Schnheit Saras
(1 Q Genesis Midrasch und der waf im Hohenliede].
Grossberg, Daniel
Canticles 3:10* in the Light of a Homeric Analogue and Biblical Poetics, BTB 11 (1981) 7476.
Gruber, Mayer I.
Ten Dance-Derived Expressions in the Hebrew Bible, Bib 62 (1981) 328346.
Heitzmann, Alfonso Alegre
El Cantar de los Cantares: Poesa y Ritual de la Pascua (Cant. I,4.VIII,5.), EstBib 43 (1985) 321330.
Herrmann, Wolfram
Gedanken zur Geschichte der altorientalischen Beschreibungslieder, ZAW 75 (1963) 176197.
Hicks, R. Lansing
The Door of Love in John H. Marks and Robert M. Good (eds.), Love and Death in the Ancient Near
East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (Guilford: Four Quarters, 1987) 153158.

RSO Rivista degli Studi Orientali
ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute (Jerusalem)
RQ Revue de Qumrn
*
10
Honeyman, Alexander M.
Two Contributions to Canaanite Toponymy, JTS 50 (1949) 5052.
Isserlin, B. S. J.
Song of Songs IV,4: An Archaeological Note, PEQ 909 (1958) 5960.
Krauss, Samuel
Die Landschaft im biblischen Hohenliede, MGWJ 78 (1934) 8187.
Krauss, Samuel
Die Rechtslage im biblischen Hohenliede, MGWJ 80 (1936) 330339.
Krauss, Samuel
The Archaeological Background of Some Passages in the Song of Songs, JQR N.S. 32 (194142) 115
137; 33 (194243) 1727; 35 (194445) 5978.
Die Macht der Liebe: Eine sthetisch-exegetische Untersuchung zu H1 8,67, MTZ 13 (1962) 256279.
Lee, G. M.
Song of Songs V 16, My Beloved is White and Ruddy, VT 21 (1971) 609.
Lemaire, Andr
Zmr dans la tablette de Gezer et le Cantique des Cantiques, VT 25 (1975) 1526.
Luciani, F.
Lultima parola di Ct 5,11a nei LXX e nelle versioni derivati, RivB 36 (1988) 7378.
Lys, Daniel
Notes sur le Cantique in Congress Volume: Rome 1968 (VTSup 17; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969) 170178.
Mller, Hans-Peter
Poesie und Magie in Cant 4,125,1, ZDMG Supplement 3/1 (1977) 157164.
Murphy, Roland E.
Dance and Death in the Song of Songs in John H. Marks and Robert M. Good (eds.), Love and Death in
the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (Guilford: Four Quarters, 1987) 117119.
Murphy, Roland E.
Cant 2:817*A Unified Poem? in Andr Caquot et al. (eds.), Mlanges bibliques et orientaux en
lhonneur de M. Mathias Delcor (AOAT 215; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen: Neukirchener,
1985) 305310.

MGWJ Monatsschrift fr Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums
MTZ Mnchener Theologische Zeitschrift
VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum
*
8
9
10
11
12
heard in our land.
Paul, Shalom M.
An Unrecognized Medical Idiom in Canticles 6,12 and Job 9,21, Bib 59 (1978) 545547.
Pope, Marvin H.
A Mare in Pharaohs Chariotry, BASOR 200 (1970) 5661.
Robert, Andr
La description de lpoux et de lpouse dans Cant., V,1115 et VII,26 in F. Lavalle (ed.), Mlanges
E. Podechard (Lyon: Facults catholiques, 1945) 211223.
Robert, Andr
Les appendices da Cantique des cantiques (VIII, 814), RB 55 (1948) 161183.
Rowley, Harold H.
The Meaning of the Shulammite, AJSL 56 (1939) 8491.
Saviv, S.
The Antiquity of the Song of Songs [Hebrew] Beth Mikra 26 (1981) 344352 [Song of Songs and the
Book of Isaiah]; 29 (198384) 295304 [The Song of Songs Influence on Isaiah and Jeremiah].
Segal, Benjamin J.
Four Repetitions in the Song of Songs, DD 16 (198788) 3239.
Segal, Benjamin J.
Double Meanings in the Song of Songs, DD 16 (198788) 249255.
Les affinits du Ps. xlv avec le Cantique des Cantiques et leur interprtation messianique in Congress
Volume: Bonn 1962 (VTSup 9; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1963) 168212.
Les chariots dAmminadab (Cant vi 12): Isral peuple thophore, VT 9 (1959) 288309.
Abraham et le Cantique des cantiques, VT 25 (1975) 544552.
The Song of Songs and Its Concluding Section, Immanuel 10 (1980) 514.
Tromp, Nicolas J.
Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8,6c7b: text, character, message and import in Maurice Gilbert (ed.), La
Sagesse de lAncien Testament (BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979) 8895.

13
14
15
16
17
cleft mountains.
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
Vogt, Ernest
Einige hebrische Wortbedeutungen, Bib 48 (1967) 5774 [6972, Der Mischkrug im A. T. und der
Vergleich in H1 7.3].
Waldman, Nahum M.
A Note on Canticles 4:9*, JBL 89 (1970) 215217.
Waterman, Leroy
in the Song of Songs, AJSL 35 (191819) 101110.
Waterman, Leroy
The Role of Solomon in the Song of Songs, JBL 44 (1925) 171187.
Winandy, Jacques
La litire de Salomon (Ct. III 910), VT 15 (1965) 103110.
Indices
1. Texts
5

b/ Old Testament Apocrypha
2 Esdras
5:2436* 13

*
9
5
*
24
and from all the lands of the world you have chosen for yourself one region, and from all the flowers
of the world you have chosen for yourself one lily,
25
and from all the depths of the sea you have filled for yourself one river, and from all the cities that
have been built you have consecrated Zion for yourself,
26
and from all the birds that have been created you have named for yourself one dove, and from all the
flocks that have been made you have provided for yourself one sheep,
27
and from all the multitude of peoples you have gotten for yourself one people; and to this people,
whom you have loved, you have given the law that is approved by all.
28
And now, O Lord, why have you handed the one over to the many, and dishonored the one root
beyond the others, and scattered your only one among the many?
29
And those who opposed your promises have trampled on those who believed your covenants.
7:26* 13
Tobit
2:13* 134
6:1415* 152

30
If you really hate your people, they should be punished at your own hands.
31
When I had spoken these words, the angel who had come to me on a previous night was sent to me.
32
He said to me, Listen to me, and I will instruct you; pay attention to me, and I will tell you more.
33
Then I said, Speak, my lord. And he said to me, Are you greatly disturbed in mind over Israel? Or do
you love him more than his Maker does?
34
I said, No, my lord, but because of my grief I have spoken; for every hour I suffer agonies of heart,
while I strive to understand the way of the Most High and to search out some part of his judgment.
35
He said to me, You cannot. And I said, Why not, my lord? Why then was I born? Or why did not my
mothers womb become my grave, so that I would not see the travail of Jacob and the exhaustion of the
people of Israel?
36
He said to me, Count up for me those who have not yet come, and gather for me the scattered
raindrops, and make the withered flowers bloom again for me;
*
26
For indeed the time will come, when the signs that I have foretold to you will come to pass, that the
city that now is not seen shall appear, and the land that now is hidden shall be disclosed.
*
13
When she returned to me, the goat began to bleat. So I called her and said, Where did you get this
goat? It is surely not stolen, is it? Return it to the owners; for we have no right to eat anything stolen.
Tobit 2:13 (NRSV)
*
14
Then Tobias said in answer to Raphael, Brother Azariah, I have heard that she already has been
married to seven husbands and that they died in the bridal chamber. On the night when they went in to
her, they would die. I have heard people saying that it was a demon that killed them.
Wisdom of Solomon
6:1220* 99(n.387)
7:814* 99(n.387)

15
It does not harm her, but it kills anyone who desires to approach her. So now, since I am the only son
my father has, I am afraid that I may die and bring my fathers and mothers life down to their grave,
grieving for meand they have no other son to bury them.
Tobit 6:1415 (NRSV)
*
12
Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by
those who seek her.
13
She hastens to make herself known to those who desire her.
14
One who rises early to seek her will have no difficulty, for she will be found sitting at the gate.
15
To fix ones thought on her is perfect understanding, and one who is vigilant on her account will soon
be free from care,
16
because she goes about seeking those worthy of her, and she graciously appears to them in their
paths, and meets them in every thought.
17
The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction, and concern for instruction is love
of her,
18
and love of her is the keeping of her laws, and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality,
19
and immortality brings one near to God;
20
so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom.
387 The ardent search for and possession of personified Wisdom is depicted with erotic overtones,
e.g., in Wis 6:1220*; 7:814*; 8:221*; Sir 51:1322*; and Bar 3:154:4*. Metaphorical imagery,
comparable to that of the Song, is used to describe Wisdom in Sir 1:1620* and 24:1322*. On the
rewards of love for personified Wisdom, see already Prov 4:79* and esp. 8:136*; note also Prov
7:4*, where embrace of knowledge is commended using epithetsmy sister (t) and intimate
one (md)reminiscent of the appellatives for the Songs lovers. Cf. the illuminating discussion of
love-language in wisdom traditions offered by Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (tr. James D. Martin;
London: SCM, 1972) 16676.
*
7:1721* 20
8:221* 99(n.387)

8
I preferred her to scepters and thrones, and I accounted wealth as nothing in comparison with her.
9
Neither did I liken to her any priceless gem, because all gold is but a little sand in her sight, and silver
will be accounted as clay before her.
10
I loved her more than health and beauty, and I chose to have her rather than light, because her
radiance never ceases.
11
All good things came to me along with her, and in her hands uncounted wealth.
12
I rejoiced in them all, because wisdom leads them; but I did not know that she was their mother.
13
I learned without guile and I impart without grudging; I do not hide her wealth,
14
for it is an unfailing treasure for mortals; those who get it obtain friendship with God, commended for
the gifts that come from instruction.
*
17
For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists, to know the structure of the world and
the activity of the elements;
18
the beginning and end and middle of times, the alternations of the solstices and the changes of the
seasons,
19
the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars,
20
the natures of animals and the tempers of wild animals, the powers of spirits and the thoughts of
human beings, the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots;
21
I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
*
2
I loved her and sought her from my youth; I desired to take her for my bride, and became enamored of
her beauty.
3
She glorifies her noble birth by living with God, and the Lord of all loves her.
4
For she is an initiate in the knowledge of God, and an associate in his works.
5
If riches are a desirable possession in life, what is richer than wisdom, the active cause of all things?
Sirach
1:1620* 99(n.387)

6
And if understanding is effective, who more than she is fashioner of what exists?
7
And if anyone loves righteousness, her labors are virtues; for she teaches self-control and prudence,
justice and courage; nothing in life is more profitable for mortals than these.
8
And if anyone longs for wide experience, she knows the things of old, and infers the things to come;
she understands turns of speech and the solutions of riddles; she has foreknowledge of signs and
wonders and of the outcome of seasons and times.
9
Therefore I determined to take her to live with me, knowing that she would give me good counsel and
encouragement in cares and grief.
10
Because of her I shall have glory among the multitudes and honor in the presence of the elders,
though I am young.
11
I shall be found keen in judgment, and in the sight of rulers I shall be admired.
12
When I am silent they will wait for me, and when I speak they will give heed; if I speak at greater
length, they will put their hands on their mouths.
13
Because of her I shall have immortality, and leave an everlasting remembrance to those who come
after me.
14
I shall govern peoples, and nations will be subject to me;
15
dread monarchs will be afraid of me when they hear of me; among the people I shall show myself
capable, and courageous in war.
16
When I enter my house, I shall find rest with her; for companionship with her has no bitterness, and
life with her has no pain, but gladness and joy.
17
When I considered these things inwardly, and pondered in my heart that in kinship with wisdom there
is immortality,
*
16
To fear the Lord is fullness of wisdom; she inebriates mortals with her fruits;
17
she fills their whole house with desirable goods, and their storehouses with her produce.
18
The fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom, making peace and perfect health to flourish.
14:2023* 93(n.360)
24:1322* 99(n.387)

19
She rained down knowledge and discerning comprehension, and she heightened the glory of those
who held her fast.
20
To fear the Lord is the root of wisdom, and her branches are long life.
*
20
Happy is the person who meditates on wisdom and reasons intelligently,
21
who reflects in his heart on her ways and ponders her secrets,
22
pursuing her like a hunter, and lying in wait on her paths;
23
who peers through her windows and listens at her doors;
360 See Loretz, Eros, esp. 20411. Loretz argues against the claims of Robert and others for presence
in the Song of obscure transferred meanings of terms by pointing out how contrastingly conspicuous is
the transposition of sexual imagery to Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 29 (cf. also Sir 14:2023* and 24:17
22*). See also Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954)esp. 5
8.
*
13
I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon.
14
I grew tall like a palm tree in En-gedi,and like rosebushes in Jericho; like a fair olive tree in the field,
and like a plane tree beside water I grew tall.
15
Like cassia and camels thorn I gave forth perfume, and like choice myrrh I spread my fragrance, like
galbanum, onycha, and stacte, and like the odor of incense in the tent.
16
Like a terebinth I spread out my branches, and my branches are glorious and graceful.
17
Like the vine I bud forth delights, and my blossoms become glorious and abundant fruit.
19
Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits.
20
For the memory of me is sweeter than honey, and the possession of me sweeter than the honeycomb.
21
Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those who drink of me will thirst for more.
22
Whoever obeys me will not be put to shame, and those who work with me will not sin.
24:1722* 93(n.360)
26:9* 159
26:16* 176
26:18* 172
47:810* 120(n.4)

*
17
Like the vine I bud forth delights, and my blossoms become glorious and abundant fruit.
19
Come to me, you who desire me, and eat your fill of my fruits.
20
For the memory of me is sweeter than honey, and the possession of me sweeter than the honeycomb.
21
Those who eat of me will hunger for more, and those who drink of me will thirst for more.
22
Whoever obeys me will not be put to shame, and those who work with me will not sin.
*
9
The haughty stare betrays an unchaste wife; her eyelids give her away.
Sirach 26:9 (NRSV)
*
16
Like the sun rising in the heights of the Lord, so is the beauty of a good wife in her well-ordered home.
Sirach 26:16 (NRSV)
*
18
Like golden pillars on silver bases, so are shapely legs and steadfast feet.
Sirach 26:18 (NRSV)
*
8
In all that he did he gave thanks to the Holy One, the Most High, proclaiming his glory; he sang praise
with all his heart, and he loved his Maker.
9
He placed singers before the altar, to make sweet melody with their voices.
10
He gave beauty to the festivals, and arranged their times throughout the year,while they praised
Gods holy name, and the sanctuary resounded from early morning.
47:1517* 6
50:121* 16970(n.9)

4 See, e.g., 1 Sam 16:1423*; 2 Sam 22; Am 6:5*; 1 Chr 15:16*; 16:736*; 2 Chr 29:27*; Sir 47:810*. Cf.
James L. Mays, The David of the Psalms, Int 40 (1986) 143155.
*
15
Your influence spread throughout the earth, and you filled it with proverbs having deep meaning.
16
Your fame reached to far-off islands, and you were loved for your peaceful reign.
17
Your songs, proverbs, and parables, and the answers you gave astounded the nations.
*
1
The leader of his brothers and the pride of his peoplewas the high priest, Simon son of Onias, who in
his life repaired the house, and in his time fortified the temple.
2
He laid the foundations for the high double walls, the high retaining walls for the temple enclosure.
3
In his days a water cistern was dug,a reservoir like the sea in circumference.
4
He considered how to save his people from ruin, and fortified the city against siege.
5
How glorious he was, surrounded by the people, as he came out of the house of the curtain.
6
Like the morning star among the clouds, like the full moon at the festal season;
7
like the sun shining on the temple of the Most High, like the rainbow gleaming in splendid clouds;
8
like roses in the days of first fruits, like lilies by a spring of water, like a green shoot on Lebanon on a
summer day;
9
like fire and incense in the censer, like a vessel of hammered gold studded with all kinds of precious
stones;
10
like an olive tree laden with fruit, and like a cypress towering in the clouds.
11
When he put on his glorious robe and clothed himself in perfect splendor, when he went up to the
holy altar, he made the court of the sanctuary glorious.
12
When he received the portions from the hands of the priests, as he stood by the hearth of the altar
with a garland of brothers around him, he was like a young cedar on Lebanon surrounded by the trunks
of palm trees.

13
All the sons of Aaron in their splendor held the Lords offering in their hands before the whole
congregation of Israel.
14
Finishing the service at the altars,and arranging the offering to the Most High, the Almighty,
15
he held out his hand for the cup and poured a drink offering of the blood of the grape; he poured it
out at the foot of the altar, a pleasing odor to the Most High, the king of all.
16
Then the sons of Aaron shouted; they blew their trumpets of hammered metal; they sounded a
mighty fanfare as a reminder before the Most High.
9
The description of Jerusalems princes in Lam 4:7* is cut from the same cloth:
Brighter than snow were her princes,
Whiter than milk,
More ruddy than coral,
More precious than sapphires.
Cf. also the description of Simon, the high priest, in Sir 50:121*, especially vv 510* (RSV):
How glorious he was when the people gathered round him
as he came out of the inner sanctuary!
Like the morning star among the clouds,
like the moon when it is full;
like the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High,
and like the rainbow gleaming in glorious clouds;
like roses in the days of the first fruits,
like lilies by a spring of water,
like a green shoot on Lebanon on a summer day;
like fire and incense in the censer,
51:1322* 99(n.387)
Baruch
3:154:4* 99(n.387)

like a vessel of hammered gold
adorned with all kinds of precious stones;
like an olive tree putting forth its fruit,
and like a cypress towering in the clouds.
*
13
While I was still young, before I went on my travels, I sought wisdom openly in my prayer.
14
Before the temple I asked for her, and I will search for her until the end.
15
From the first blossom to the ripening grape my heart delighted in her; my foot walked on the straight
path; from my youth I followed her steps.
16
I inclined my ear a little and received her, and I found for myself much instruction.
17
I made progress in her; to him who gives wisdom I will give glory.
18
For I resolved to live according to wisdom,and I was zealous for the good, and I shall never be
disappointed.
19
My soul grappled with wisdom,and in my conduct I was strict;I spread out my hands to the heavens,
and lamented my ignorance of her.
20
I directed my soul to her, and in purity I found her. With her I gained understanding from the first;
therefore I will never be forsaken.
21
My heart was stirred to seek her; therefore I have gained a prize possession.
22
The Lord gave me my tongue as a reward, and I will praise him with it.
*
15
Who has found her place? And who has entered her storehouses?
16
Where are the rulers of the nations, and those who lorded it over the animals on earth;
17
those who made sport of the birds of the air, and who hoarded up silver and gold in which people
trust, and there is no end to their getting;
1 Maccabees
4:57* 155
c/ Ancient Near Eastern Literature
1/ Egyptian Love Poetry
Papyrus Harris 500
Hermann nos. 119 4447
no. 7 169(n.7)

18
those who schemed to get silver, and were anxious, but there is no trace of their works?
19
They have vanished and gone down to Hades, and others have arisen in their place.
20
Later generations have seen the light of day, and have lived upon the earth; but they have not learned
the way to knowledge, nor understood her paths, nor laid hold of her.
21
Their descendants have strayed far from her way.
22
She has not been heard of in Canaan, or seen in Teman;
23
the descendants of Hagar, who seek for understanding on the earth, the merchants of Merran and
Teman, the story-tellers and the seekers for understanding, have not learned the way to wisdom, or
given thought to her paths.
24
O Israel, how great is the house of God, how vast the territory that he possesses!
25
It is great and has no bounds; it is high and immeasurable.
26
The giants were born there, who were famous of old, great in stature, expert in war.
27
God did not choose them, or give them the way to knowledge;
28
so they perished because they had no wisdom, they perished through their folly.
29
Who has gone up into heaven, and taken her, and brought her down from the clouds?
30
Who has gone over the sea, and found her, and will buy her for pure gold?
Baruch 3:154:4 (NRSV)
*
57
They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates
and the chambers for the priests, and fitted them with doors.
1 Maccabees 4:57 (NRSV)

7
For the theme of the door in Egyptian love poetry, note the following lines from the Papyrus Harris
Back at the farmstead of my girl:
the doorway in the center of the house,
her door left ajar,
her door bolt sprung;
my girl is furious!
If I were made the doorkeeper
I could make her mad at me,
then at least Id hear her voice when she is angry,
and Id play the child afraid of her.
In the Nakht-Sobek cycle, the following lines occur (Simpson, Literature, 324325):
See what the lady has done to me!
Faugh! Shall I keep silent for her sake?
She made me stand at the door of her house
while she went inside.
She didnt say to me, come in, young man,
but deaf to me remained tonight.
I passed by her house in the dark,
I knocked and no one opened,
What a beautiful night for our doorkeeper!
Open, door bolts!
Door leaves you are my fate, you are my genie.
Our ox will be slaughtered for you inside.
Cairo Love Songs
no. 20 47
no. 21 160(n.12), 196(n.7)

Door leaves do not use your strength.
It seems inevitable that such a theme would emerge in love poetry, and it is worth noting that the
treatment of the door varies from poem to poem.
12
Simpson, Literature, 310:
Ill head into the waves;
7
In one of the Cairo Love Songs, the man expresses his desire to be a seal ring on his lovers hand
I wish I were the seal ring,
the guardian of her [fingers],
then *+.
Moreover, because no obstacle is too great for love to overcome, the Egyptian lover expresses himself
in terms similar to those of 8:7* (Simpson, Literature, 310):
nos. 2526 47
no. 27 196(n.7)
Turin Papyrus
Chester Beatty Papyrus I
no. 31 46, 47, 178(n.7)
no. 32 45(n.215), 146(n.2)
no. 33 46(n.217)
nos. 3536 45(n.215)
no. 36 146(n.2), 188(n.15)

Ill head into the waves,
7
See, e.g., the first stanza of the Egyptian Songs of Extreme Happiness (Simpson, Literature, 315316):
One, the lady love without duplicate,
more perfect than the world,
see, she is like the star rising
at the start of an auspicious year.

When she comes forth, anyone can see that there is none like that one.
215 Most of the references to the Golden One (Hathor) in the major collections surveyed above
appear in the Chester Beatty love songs: see nos. 32, 3536, 40, 42. Inscriptions and songs of praise
dedicated to the goddess are included among the supplemental texts translated in Siegfried Schotts
edition of the love songs: Les chants d amour de l gypte ancienne (tr. Paul Krieger; Lorient ancient
illustr; Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1956) 89170. On Hathor and her cult, see Claas J. Bleeker, Der religise
Gehalt einiger Hathor-Lieder, Zeitschrift fr gyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 99 (1973) 8288.
Cf. White, Study, 7174 and 9899; and Fox, 23436.
2 Simpson, Literature, 317, 320 (Chester Beatty Love Songs).
217 The only figure specifically named in these love songs who may have been an historical personage is
the illusive Mehy (no. 33), perhaps identical with Pamehy (no. 15): regarding his possible identity
and significance, see Fox, 6466.

15
Rudolph, 179. This passage from the Song deserves comparison with one of the Chester Beatty Love
Songs, entitled The Beginning of the Songs of Extreme Happiness. The sixth stanza is spoken by the
woman (Simpson, Literature, 319320):
I passed by the precinct of his house,
I found his door ajar,
the lover standing by his mother,
with him his brothers and sisters.
Love of him captures the heart
of all who walk the road.
Handsome guy, no one like him,
a lover of perfect taste.
He stares me out when I walk by,
and all alone I cry for joy;
how happy in my delight
with the lover in my sight.
If only mother knew my wish,
she would have gone inside by now.
O, Golden Goddess, place him in her heart, too,
then Ill rush off to the lover.
Ill kiss him in front of his crowd,
Ill not be ashamed because of the women.
But Ill be happy at their finding out
that you know me this well.
Ill make festivals for my Goddess,
my heart trembles to come forth,
no. 37 136(n.18)

and to let me look over the lover tonight.
How happy, how happy is this passing by.
18
>The seventh stanza of the Songs of Extreme Happiness in the Chester Beatty Love Songs expressly
develops the theme of love-sickness (Simpson, Literature, 320321):
Seven days have passed, and Ive not seen my lady love;
a sickness has shot through me.
I have become sluggish
I have forgotten my own body.
If the best surgeons come to me,
my heart will not be comforted with their remedies.
And the prescription sellers, theres no help through them;
my sickness will not be cut out.
Telling me shes come is what will bring me back to life.
Its only her name which will raise me up.
Its the coming and going of her letters
which will bring my heart to life.
To me the lady love is more remedial than any potion;
shes better than the whole Compendium.
My only salvation is her coming inside.
Seeing her, then Im well.
When she opens her eyes my body is young,
when she speaks Ill grow strong,
when I embrace her she drives off evil from me.
But now the days of her absence amount to Seven.
no. 38 134(n.8)
no. 39 47
no. 40 45(n.215), 46
no. 42 45(n.215)
no. 43 156
no. 46 169(n.7)
Wen-Amon 42(n.194)
Megiddo Ivory 4243(n.194)
2/ Sumerian Texts
As You Let Day Slip By 53(n.245)
The Bridal Sheets 49(n.233)
Dumuzis Wedding 50(n.236)
The First Child 54(n.248)
He Arrives 54(n.247)
Hymn to Inanna 51(n.238)

Here, in contrast to the Song, it is the man who is love-sick, not the woman.
8 See Simpson, Literature, 321322 (Chester Beatty Love Songs). For a different interpretation of v 9*,
see the Notes, p. 131.
194 In support of this view, Erman refers to the minstrel, an Egyptian woman attached to the royal court
in Byblos, who briefly appears in the story of Wen-Amons sea-faring expedition to Phoenicia. During the
final anxious day before Wen-Amons return voyage to Egypt, the prince of Byblos sent to him Ta-net-
Not, an Egyptian singer who was with him, saying: Sing to him! Dont let his heart take on cares! (John
A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 28). Additional support is contributed by the hieroglyphic inscription on one of the
Megiddo Ivories (c. early twelfth century B.C.E.), which mentions an Egyptian female minstrel, the
Singer of Ptah (John A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 263; see also 246 and n. 30).
245 Jacobsen, Harps, 90 (As You Let Day Slip By).
233 Jacobsen, Harps, 1315 (The Bridal Sheets). On the figure of Dumuzi, and his primary epithets and
avatars, see the classic study of Thorkild Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz, History of Religions
1 (1961) 189213 (reprinted in Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on
Mesopotamian History and Culture [Harvard Semitic Series 21; ed. William L. Moran; Cambridge:
Harvard University, 1970] 73101); and William L. Moran, The Name Dumuzi, JQR 76(1985) 4145.
236 Jacobsen, Harps, 21 (Dumuzis Wedding, 1923). Cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 3 (49799); and
Kramer, ANET
3
, 63839 (Courting, Marriage, and Honeymoon). The ceremony of opening the door also
figures prominently in the so-called Uruk sacred marriage text: Kramer, Studies, no. 2 (49597); and
Kramer, ANET
3
, 638 (Love in the Gipar); cf. Jacobsen, Treasures, 3337.
248 Jacobsen, Harps, 96 (The First Child, 9596); cf. Kramer, ANET
3
, (Love-Song to a King).
247 Jacobsen, Harps, 91 (He Arrives).
Inannas Descent 96(n.371)
Love in the Gipar 50(n.236)
Love Song to Shu-Suen 52(n.243)
Message of Ludingira 5354(n.246), 161(n.14)

238 Jacobsen, Harps, 113 (Hymn to Inanna as Warrior, Star, and Bride, 11224). For collation of the
cuneiform text, with translation and notes, see Daniel Reisman, Iddin-Dagans Sacred Marriage Hymn,
JCS 25 (1973) 185202.
371 So Meek, 118. For the Sumerian and Akkadian texts in translation, see Samuel Noah Kramer, ANET
3
,
5257 (Inannas Descent to the Nether World); and Ephraim A. Speiser, ANET
3
, 106109 (Descent of
Ishtar to the Nether World). Cf. also Kramer, Studies, 49192.
243 Jacobsen, Harps, 88 (Love Song to Shu-Suen, 8889). For collation and discussion of this
composition, and also of the Tavern Sketch cited in the following note, see Thorkild Jacobsen, Two
bal-bal-e Dialogues, Love & Death in the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. John
H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford: Four Quarters, 1987) 5763.
246
Cf. Jerrold S. Cooper, New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 90 (1971) 15762. Cooper
calls attention to a Sumerian text in which a certain Ludingira wishes to send greetings to his mother in
Nippur. The effusive son gives the messenger various signs by which to recognize the woman,
including metaphorical descriptions of her beauty that are somewhat reminiscent of wafs in the Song.
For example, the mother is said to be (160):
An alabaster statuette set on a lapis pedestal,
A living rod of ivory, whose limbs are filled with charm.
With imagery comparable to Cant 4:1215*, she is later compared to a garden (161):
An irrigation ditch carrying luxuriant waters to garden plots,
14
Jerrold S. Cooper (New Cuneiform Parallels to the Song of Songs, JBL 90 [1971] 157162, esp. 161
162) has compared the language of a Sumerian literary text (a description which a certain Ludingira
My Wool Being Lettuce 54(n.249)
The Sisters Message 49(n.232)
Shulgi Hymns 50(n.234)

presents of his mother) with Cant 4:1215*. He translates the relevant portion of the Sumerian text as
follows:
My mother is rain from heaven, water for the finest seed,
A harvest of plenty ,
An irrigation ditch carrying luxuriant waters to the garden plots,
Cooper comments (162): Were it not for the words mother in Ludingira, and sister, bride in the
Song of Songs, it would be difficult to detect any difference in the tenor of the two passages, and this
tenor is decidedly erotic. While this is expected in the Song of Songs, it is problematic in the description
of Ludingiras mother. Perhaps the author was using the only vocabulary he knew for describing a
woman, vocabulary drawn from erotic literature, where most descriptions of women would naturally be
found. Cooper allows for a certain amount of subjectivity (162 n. 21) in the recognition of erotic
imagery, but his main point is well taken. The erotic quality of the imagery of garden, fruit, waters, etc. is
remarkable, and it is effective. It is interesting to note that Ludingiras description of his mother is given
so that his messenger will be able to recognize her; the same device is used in Cant 5:916*. On the
symbolic aspect of the garden, see Francis Landy, The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden, JBL 98
(1971) 513528; and also Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of
Songs (BLS; Sheffield: Almond, 1983) 189265. Cf. Keel, 158164.
249 Jacobsen, Harps, 94 (Vigorously He Sprouted); cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 9 (508509); and Kramer,
ANET
3
, 645 (The Honey-Man). See also Jacobsen, Harps, 93 (My Wool Being Lettuce; cf. Kramer,
Studies, no. 8 (508); and Kramer, ANET
3
, 644 (Lettuce is My Hair).
232 Jacobsen, Harps, 89 (The Sisters Message); and also Thorkild Jacobsen, The Sisters Message,
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University 5 (1973: Gaster Festschrift) 199212.
Cf. Kramer, Studies, no. 4 (50910); and Kramer, ANET
3
, 645 (Set Me Free, My Sister).
234 For an overview of the major Sumerian hieros gamos texts, see Thorkild Jacobsen, Religious Drama
in Ancient Mesopotamia, Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the
Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 1975) 6597, esp. 6571. For the texts, see nn. 236 and
Tavern Sketch 46(n.220), 52, 53(n.244), 54, 72(n.305)

238 below, and also the following compositions as collated and translated by Samuel Noah Kramer: The
King of the Road: A Self-Laudatory Shulgi Hymn, ANET
3
, 58486; Blessing on the Wedding Night,
ANET
3
, 64041 (Studies, no. 5 *501503+); Prayer for Water and Bread, ANET
3
, 641642 (Studies,
no. 6 [503505+); Prosperity in the Palace, ANET
3
, 64244 (Studies, no. 7 *505508+); Inanna and
ulgi: A Sumerian Fertility Song, Iraq 31 (1969) 2022; Shulgi of Ur: A Royal Hymn and a Divine
Blessing, The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review (ed. Abraham A.
Neuman and Solomon Zeitlin; Philadelphia: Jewish Quarterly Review, 1967) 36980.
220 Comparable use of sister and brother as epithets for lovers is frequent in Sumerian texts (e.g.,
Thorkild Jacobsen, The Harps That Once: Sumerian Poetry in Translation [New Haven/London: Yale
University, 1987] 9798 *Tavern Sketch+); cf. also, in the Ugaritic corpus, the overture made by the
goddess Anat to the hero Aqhat: You are my brother and I am *your+ sister (CTA 18 [= UT 3 Aqht]
1.24).
244 Jacobsen, Harps, 98 (Tavern Sketch, 9798); Jacobsen appropriately compares the oath-taking
rites referred to in Gen 24:89* and 47:29*.
305
Descriptions in the Songs wafs of the lower human torso and genitalia use subtle imagery that seems
to heighten the erotic effect. The pertinent region of the female anatomy is described as follows
(7:3*[2*]):
For comparable, but more explicit, imagery in the Sumerian love poems, see above, pp. 5455. The
Songs terse depiction of the male genital region in 5:14b* employs some difficult terminology: m w
eet n mullepet sapprm. The first term usually refers in biblical Hebrew to internal organs of
digestion and procreation; its use here for external anatomy seems to mean belly or more specifically
loins (cf. Pope, 543). While es et is a hapax in biblical Hebrew (cf. the verb, connoting smoothness, in
Jer 5:28*), rabbinic sources understood the term to refer to a smooth bar, pillar or column, e.g.,
comparable to the shape of a scroll (cf. Cant. Rab. 5:14.2 [Simon, 246]; and Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary
of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature [New York: Pardes,
1950+ 1128). Rather than covered with sapphires or the like, the final two words may be literally
rendered ensconced in lapis lazuli. With the translation that these readings yield (His loins, a shaft of
ivory, ensconced in lapis lazuli) one may compare the following praise of male virility in one of the
Sumerian love poems (Jacobsen, Harps, 98 *Tavern Sketch+):
Vigorously He Sprouted 54(n.249)
The Wiles of Women 49(n.231)
3/ Akkadian Texts
Babylonian Love Lyrics 5657
Descent of Ishtar 96(n.371)
Faithful Lover 56
KAR no. 158 57(n.260)
4/ Ugaritic Texts
CTA 3 (=UT nt)
3.12 184
CTA 6 (=UT 49)
1.1 119
CTA 18(=UT 3 Aqht)
1.24 46(n.220)
CTA 23 (=UT 52) 55
4952 56(n.255)
UT 1084.123 125
d/ Qumran, Early Jewish, and Classical Rabbinic Sources
Qumran Texts
1QapGen 158(n.5)

O my pure pillar, my pure pillar
sweet are your charms
Pillar of alabaster set in lapis lazuli
sweet are your charms.
231 Compare 3:4* and 8:12* with the text in Jacobsen, Harps, 1012 (The Wiles of Women). Cf.
Kramer, Studies, no. 4 (499501) and also his translation of the text, ANET
3
, 63940 (The Ecstasy of
Love).
260 For the text of KAR no. 158 as translated by Meek, see Pope, 14647.
255 CTA 23 (UT 52). 4952: yhbr pthm y[q] hn s pthm mtqtm mtqtm klrmn[m] bm nq
whr . bbg . mmt . tqt[nn] tldn r wlm (tr. by editor).
5 1QapGen, col. 20 ll. 18 (Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Daniel J. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic
Texts [BibOr 34; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1978] 112113). Cf. Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, Philologische
Miscellen zur den Qumrantexte, RQ 2 (195960) 4648; and Wolfram Herrmann, Gedanken zur
Geschichte der altorientalischen Beschreibungslieder, ZAW 75 (1963) 176197.
6QCant 8, 9(n.35), 125, 126
Josephus
Contra Apion
1.8 6(n.14)
Jewish Antiquities
8.165175 121(n.9)
Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael
Pisa
7.8386 7(n.19)
13.147149 7(n.19)
14.2327 7(n.19)
Beshalla
3.8994 7(n.19)
Shirata
1.1586 30(n.134)

35 A tendency toward harmonization and expansion, based especially on parallel passages, is
characteristic of the Hebrew textual tradition (now well attested in Qumran manuscripts as well as the
Samaritan Pentateuch) which Cross has identified as Palestinian. He notes further that books of the
Writings among the Qumran scrolls witness to a text-type which may be considered both proto-
Masoretic and Palestinian (Frank M. Cross, The Evolution of a Theory of Local Texts, Qumran and
the History of the Biblical Text [ed. Frank Moore Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon; Cambridge: Harvard,
1975] 308). This may aptly describe not only 6QCant but also the Hebrew texts of the Song underlying
both G and E.
14 Contra Apionen 1.8 (Henry St. John Thackeray, tr., Josephus, Vol. 1 [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard
University; London: William Heinemann, 1926] 178179).
9 1 Kgs 10:113*. Cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 8.165175; and also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of
the Jews, Vol. 4 (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1913) 142149.
19 Rabbinic interpretation found allusion to the exodus from Egypt especially in the reference of 1:9* to
Pharaohs chariots. See the Targum to this verse (Pope, 342, provides an English translation) and also
Cant. Rab. 1:9.46 (Simon, 6872). Connection of the Song with the Passover season was also suggested
by the references to spring in 2:113* and 7:12*[11*] (see the comments of Tournay, and the literature
cited, in Robert, 429). Additional but less obvious associations between exodus-passover events and
imagery of the Song are suggested already in the tannaitic midrash Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael: e.g., Pisha
7.8386; 13.147149; 14.2327; Beshallah 3.8994; Shirata 1.136139; 6.99; 10.4 (references are to the
edition of Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, 3 Vols. [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication
Society of America, 1933]).
134 The following compositions are enumerated: 1) the Song for the Sabbath Day (Ps 92), attributed
to Adam; 2) the hymn song by Moses and the Israelites after their deliverance at the sea (Exod 15); 3)
the Song of the Well (Num 21:1718*); 4) the valedictory Song of Moses (Deut 32); 5) Joshuas
chant at the battle of Gibeon (Josh 10:12*); 6) the victory song of Barak and Deborah (Judg 5); 7)
1.136139 7(n.19)
3.4963 13(n.55)
6.99 7(n.19)
10.4 7(n.19)
Sifre Deuteronomy

Hannahs song of praise (1 Sam 2); 8) Davids song following his deliverance from Saul (2 Sam 22 = Ps
18); 9) the Solomonic Song of Songs; 10) the song foretold by the prophet Isaiah, which Israel will sing
at the time of its ingathering from diaspora (Isa 20:29*). The songs in this list numbered 27 appear in
identical order in the discussion of ancient Israels ten songs preserved in the tannaitic Mekilta de
Rabbi Ishmael, Shirata 1.1586 (Lauterbach, Mekilta 2, 27). Similarly, songs 24, 6, and 8 in this
enumeration are found sequentially in Origens list of the five Israelite hymnic compositions antedating
and excelled by Solomons sublime Song; see n. 81 above. The possibility of relating such lists to
Christian liturgical traditions of biblical odes or canticles is discussed by James L. Kugel, Is there but
One Song? Bib 63 (1982) 329350.
55
The most substantive but still cryptic remarks on the Song attributed to Aqiba are cited in the Mekilta
de Rabbi Ishmael, Shirata 3.4963 (commenting on Ex 15:2*): Rabbi Akiba says: Before all the Nations
of the World I shall hold forth on the beauties and splendor of Him Who Spake and the World Came to
Be! For, lo, the Nations of the World keep asking Israel, What is thy Beloved more than another
beloved, that thou dost so adjure us (Cant. 5:9*), that for His sake you die, for His sake you let
yourselves be slain, as it is said, Therefore do the maidens (lmwt) love Thee (Cant. 1:3*)they love
Thee to the point of death (d mwt)!and it is written, Nay, but for Thy sake are we killed etc. (Ps.
44:23*). Look you! Youre attractive, look you! youre brave. Come merge with us!
But Israel reply to the Nations of the World: Have you any notion of Him? Let us tell you a little bit of
His Glory: My beloved is white and ruddy etc. (Cant. 5:10ff*.).
And when the Nations of the World hear but a little bit of the Glory of Him Who Spake and the
World Came to Be, they say to Israel, Let us go along with you, as it is said, Whither is thy Beloved gone,
O thou fairest among women? Whither hath thy Beloved turned Him, that we may seek Him with thee
(Cant. 6:1*)?
But Israel reply to the Nations of the World: You have no part of Him; on the contrary, My beloved
is mine, and I am His (Cant. 2:16*), I am my Beloveds and my Beloved is mine etc. (Cant. 6:3*) (tr.
Judah Goldin, The Song at the Sea, being a Commentary on a Commentary in Two Parts [New Haven and
London: Yale University, 1971] 115117 [cf. Lauterbach, Mekilta 2, 2627]. Similar remarks are cited
anonymously in Cant. Rab. 5:9.1 (Simon, 238) and midrash Sipre Deut. 343 (Louis Finkelstein, ed., Siphre
ad Deuteronomium [Corpus Tannaiticum 3/3; Berlin: Jdischer Kulturbund in Deutschland, 1939] 399; cf.
Hans Bietenhard, tr., Sifre Deuteronomium: bersetzt und erklrt [Judaica et Christiana 8; Bern: Peter
Lang, 1984] 833834).
343 13(n.55)
Canticles Rabbah (Midr azt)
1:1.59 29(n.125)
1:1.8 29(nn.126, 127)
1:1.10 6(nn.15, 17)
1:2.2 29(n.128), 30(n.129)
1:2.11 30(n.131)
1:9.46 7(n.19)
1:12.1 30(n.131)
2:4.1 30(n.131)
4:5.1 30(n.130)

125 Cant. Rab. 1:1.59 (Simon, 45, 7, 9, 10, 13).
126 Cant. Rab. 1:1.8 (Simon, 10).
127 Cant. Rab. 1:1.8 (Simon, 9).
15 See m. Yadayim 3.5; m. Eduyyot 5.3. Cf. t. Yadayim 2.14; b. Megillah 7a; and also Cant. Rab. 1:1.10
(Maurice Simon, tr., Song of Songs in Midrash Rabbah, Vol. 9 [ed. H. Freedman and Maurice Simon;
London: Soncino, 1939] 1819). For discussion of the relevant data, see Sid Z. Leiman, The Canonization
of Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of
Arts and Sciences 47; Hamden: Archon, 1976) 120126, 132.
17 In b. Baba Batra 14b15a, the order of books in the Ketubim is given as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The Song is
thus grouped with the other two books (Proverbs and Ecclesiastes) traditionally ascribed to Solomon,
though a subsequent comment in the section attributes the writing (redaction, collection,
transmission?) of these works as well as the book of Isaiah to Hezekiah and his colleagues (I. Epstein,
tr., The Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nezikin 3/Baba Bathra 1 [London: Soncino, 1935] 71). Cf. also the
rabbinic discussion on the order of Solomonic composition of the three books attributed to him, in Cant.
Rab. 1:1.10 (Simon, 17).
128 Cant. Rab. 1:2.2 (Simon, 2122).
129 Cant. Rab. 1:2.2 (Simon, 32).
131 Note especially Cant. Rab. 1:2.11 (end): R. Judan and R. Levi in the name of R. Johanan said:
Wherever you find in this scroll the expression king Solomon, the text speaks actually of king Solomon;
but wherever you find the king simply, it speaks of the Holy One, blessed be He. The Rabbis, however,
say: Wherever you find king Solomon, the reference is to the King whose is peace (shalom); wherever
you find the king simply, the reference is to the Community of Israel (Simon, 20). Cf. also the comment
attributed to R. Judah, in response to an interpretation of R. Meir (Cant. Rab. 1:12.1; 2:4.1): we do not
expound the Song of Songs in a bad sense but only in a good one, since the Song of Songs was composed
only for the praise of Israel (Simon, 77, 102103).
4:4.9 72(n.306)
5:9.1 13(n.55)
5:14.2 72(n.305)
Aggdat r harm 6(n.16), 28(n.123)
Midr r harm 28(n.123)8
Mishnah
Taanit
4.8 13(n.53)

130 Cant. Rab. 4:5.1 (Simon, 198).
306 E.g., Cant. Rab. 4:4.9 (Simon, 196): Just as a mans neck is the highest part of him, so the Temple
was the highest part of the world. And just as most ornaments are hung round the neck, so the priests
were attached to the Temple, the Levites were attached to the Temple. Recent literary criticism may be
in process of rediscovering and appreciating anew the affective, allusive aspects of the Songs
language and rich poetic imagery which gave rise to early Christian and Jewish allegorical readings. In
this regard, see Albert Cook, The Root of the Thing: A Study of Job and the Song of Songs
(Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1968) 99151, with appreciative attention given to the work
of Paul Claudel. See now also Harold Fisch, Poetry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation
(Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University, 1988) 80103 (with the section entitled, interestingly,
Song of Solomon: The Allegorical Imperative); note esp. 95: It seems that there is no way to avoid
interpretation and that interpretationespecially in a poem so dreamlike in its symbolismwill tend to
partake of the nature of allegory. This is true of all poetry and of all interpretations of poems. It is more
compellingly true of the Song of Solomon. If the ancients had not already taken this path, modern
literary critics would certainly have felt obliged to do so.
16 Herbert Danby, tr., The Mishnah (London: Oxford University, 1933) 782. With this may be compared
the remark attributed to Aqiba in midrash Aggdat r harm: Had not the Torah been given,
Canticles would have sufficed to guide the world (Ephraim E. Urbach, The Homiletical Interpretations
of the Sages and the Expositions of Origen on Canticles, and the Jewish-Christian Disputation, Studies in
Aggadah and Folk-Literature [SH 22; Ed. Joseph Heinemann and Dov Noy; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew
University, 1971] 250). Elsewhere Aqiba is reported to have excluded from the world to come anyone
who would recite or sing the Song in a profane way in a banquet house (t. Sanhedrin 12.10).
123 For an introduction to the work, with assessment of its date, provenance and sources, see Samuel
Tobias Lachs, Prolegomena to Canticles Rabba, JQR 55 (196465) 235255. Cf. also Moshe David Herr,
Song of Songs Rabbah, EncJud 15, 152154; and Jacob Z. Lauterbach, Shir ha-Shirim (Canticles)
Rabbah, JE 11, 291292. Extant also are two later (10th11th century) collections of Jewish homiletical
expositions of the Song: Aggdat r harm, known also as Midr s r harm z (Solomon
Schechter, ed., [Cambridge: Bell, 1896]; Salomon Buber, ed.,
, , [Berlin, 1894; Wilno,
2
1925]); and Midr r harm (Lazar
Grnhut, ed., [Jerusalem/Jaffa, 1897]).
Eduyyot
5.3 6(n.15)
Yadayim
3.5 6(n.15)
Tosephta
Sanhedrin
12.10 6(n.16), 13(n.53)
Yadayim
2.14 6(n.15)
Babylonian Talmud
Yoma
67a 139
Megillah
7a 6(n.15)
Baba Batra
14b15a 6(n.17)
Sanhedrin
101a 13(n.53)
Targum
Onkelos (to Gen 15:19* and Num 24:21*)
Song of Songs
1:1 30(n.133)

53 The remark is preserved in t. Sanhedrin 12.10: Rabbi Aqiba says, Whoever sings the Song of Songs
with tremulous voice in a banquet hall and (so) treats it as a sort of ditty [dmn zemer] has no share in
the world to come (cf. b. Sanhedrin 101a, where a similar rebuke is cited anonymously). Possibly
relevant here also is the dictum attributed to Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel in m. Taanit 4.8, which seems
to connect Cant 3:11* with festivities during the season of grape harvest (even though the present
mishnaic context interprets the day of his marriage as the law-giving at Sinai and the day of the joy of
his heart with the completion of the Solomonic temple). Cf. Urbach, Homiletical Interpretations, 247
248; and Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of
Wisconsin, 1985) 252.
*
19
the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,
*
21
Then he looked on the Kenite, and uttered his oracle, saying: Enduring is your dwelling place, and
your nest is set in the rock;
133
8:1314 31(n.135)

Tg. r has rm 1:1* (Sperber, Vol. 4a, 127):

.][
135
A translation of the Targums rendering of the final two verses of the Song may serve to illustrate the
eschatological interest of the work, as well as the expository technique; italicized words indicate primary
loci in the Hebrew text upon which the Aramaic expansion is based: (8:13*) Solomon, the prophet, said
at the end of his prophecy: The Sovereign of the World is prepared to announce to the assembly of
Israel at the end of days: You, assembly of Israel, are like a small garden amidst the nations, seated
[dwelling] in the academy with members [friends] of the Sanhedrin and the rest of the people who are
listening to the president and learning from his mouth words of Torah. Let me hear the sound of your
words, when you sit (in judgment) to acquit and to declare guilty; I will approve everything that you do.
(8:14*) At that time, the elders of Israel shall say: Flee, my lover, Sovereign of the world, from this
impure earth; let your Shekinah dwell in heavens height. But when, in tribulation, we pray before you,
be like a gazelle, which sleeps with one eye closed and one eye open, or a young hind, which glances
behind when it runs away. Thus may you keep watch on us, taking note from heavens height of our
troubles and hardships, until the time that you take delight in us and redeem us and bring us up upon
the mountain of Jerusalem; there the priests will offer up before you incense of spices (editors tr.)
[(Sperber, Vol. 4a, 141)

e/ Greek and Roman Authors
Homer
Odyssey
6.162169 186(n.7)
6.232234 172(n.18)
18.196 172(n.22)
Sophocles
Antigone
781800 196
Theocritus
Idylls
18.30 131
Lucretius
De rerum natura
4.11771179 168(n.5)

7 So Gerleman, 201; Rudolph, 173175; and Loretz, 44.
18 Gerleman (173) appropriately refers to the Odyssey 6.232234, where Athene pours charm on the
head of Odysseus as a goldsmith pours out silver and gold.
22 Pope, 544. Gerleman (176) refers to the scene in the Odyssey 18.196 in which Athene brings it about
that the sleeping Penelope is made whiter than ivory.
5 De rerum natura 4.11771179 (W. H. D. Rouse, tr., Lucretius: De Rerum Natura [LCL; Cambridge,
Harvard University; London: William Heinemann,
3
1937] 330332): But the lover shut out, weeping,
often covers the threshold with flowers and wreaths, anoints the proud doorposts with oil of marjoram,
presses his love-sick kisses upon the door. (at lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepa I floribus et
sertis operit postisque superbos I unguit amaracino et foribus miser oscula figit). Some contact with the
practice of anointing the door of the beloved with myrrh cannot be excluded from 5:4*, although myrrh
in the Song (1:13*; 3:6*; 4:6*, 14*; 5:1*, 5*, 13*) may have its own independent and indefinable
function. Considerable material relative to the excluded lover as literary motif is to be found in Frank
Ovid
Ars amatoria

O. Copley, Exclusus Amator: A Study in Latin Love Poetry (American Philological Monographs 17;
Madison: American Philological Association, 1956).
1.1923 197(n.8)

8
The power of love has, of course, been celebrated in other ancient literature. Especially noteworthy is
the hymn to Eros (comprised of strophe and antistrophe) in Sophocles Antigone, 781800 (F. Storr, tr.,
Sophocles, Vol. 1 [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University; London: William Heinemann, 1912] 376377):
Love resistless in fight,
all yield at a glance of thine eye,
Love who pillowed all night
on a maidens cheek dost lie,
Over the upland folds thou roamst,
and the trackless sea.
Love the gods captive holds.
Shall mortals not yield to thee?
Mad are thy subjects all,
and even the wisest heart
Straight to folly will fall,
at a touch of thy poisoned dart.
Thou didst kindle the strife,
this feud of kinsmen with kin,
By the eyes of a winsome wife,
and the yearning her heart to win.
For as her consort still,
enthroned with Justice above,
Thou bendest man to thy will,
O all invincible Love.
([strophe, lines 781790] ,
2.721722 186(n.6)
2. Hebrew Words
(b) 179
(bq) 75, 149

, -
, -
,

-
, .
[antistrophe, lines 791800]
-
-

,
-
-
.)
Cf. also Ovid, Ars amatoria, 1.1923.
6 In this connection, commentators refer to Ovid, Ars amatoria 2.721722 (J. H. Mozley, tr., Ovid, Vol. 2:
The Art of Love, and Other Poems [LCL; Cambridge: Harvard University; London: William Heinemann,
2
1979] 114115): You will see her eyes shooting tremulous gleams, as the sun often glitters in clear
water (Aspicies oculos tremulo fulgore micantes, / Ut sol a liquida saepe refulget aqua).
(gz) 75, 176
(aggn) 182
(dm) 165
(admn) 165
(hb) 127, 128, 131
(ahb) 82, 99, 104, 133, 136, 146, 149, 183, 198(n.11)
(hlt) 67(n.292), 157
(az) 193
() 184
(aad) 156, 158, 175, 178
(t) 81, 158, 165
(z) 139
(zm) 149
(kk) 165
(ayylt) 133
(ayylm) 78
(ym) 70, 175
() 194

11 L. Krinetzki (244) remarks as follows: It *love+, as participating in divine qualities (6f.*), is victor over
the floods of chaos, as God himself who conquered the primeval waters at the beginning of the world.
Yet it is the flames of love, not explicitly the power of love, that participates in divine qualities. See
also Leo Krinetzki, Die Macht der Liebe, MTZ 13 (1962) 256279. Nicholas J. Tromp (Wisdom and the
Canticle. Ct 8,6c7b: text, character, message and import, La Sagesse de lAncien Testament [ed.
Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979], 94) provides a slightly different perspective: The
implication of these remarks is that Love is represented here as a force which is able to overcome the
negative forces which threaten the very existence of the world and mankind. In other words, Love gains
the victory over chaos and creates wholesome order and life. Very likely the dark powers are personified
in God. That means that Love is brought on the stage as a person as well. Consequently, Love is a
personified creative power in these lines, and the partition here between Love and God is extremely thin
indeed. Tromp claims that these verses are the proper end of the Song; he adopts Tournays point
that the term ahb (love) in 8:6* forms an inclusio with 1:34*.
292 Cf. Broadribb (Thoughts, 2425), who identifies some twenty-four points of contact, including the
following: r (song) is used in the titles of both works; Cant 3:11* attests to a conjunction of
coronation and wedding, which is the focus of the entire psalm; harb al-yrk (each with his
sword upon his thigh) in Cant 3:8* and gr-arbk al-yrk (Gird your sword upon *your+ thigh)
in Ps 45:4*; and shared attestation of relatively uncommon terms such as hlt (aloes), brm
(companions), ketem (gold), and n (lily).
(al) 126, 182
(elep) 194
(m) 188
(mmn) 75, 182
(ap) (conj.) 132
(ap) (noun) 73, 183, 187
(appiryn) 75, 149
(argmn) 149, 183, 186
(erez) 193
() 191
(t) 132
(aklt) 183
(er) 74, 75, 87(n.346), 119
(t) 9, 87(n.346)
(b) 132
(br) 157
(bw) 125, 132, 156
(bwz) 184, 192
(been) 182
(bayit) 132, 192
(bnh) 155
(bnt) 83(n.336), 150, 175, 176

346 Relative absence of prosaic syntax and particles is one of the major criteria urged by David Noel
Freedman in recognizing poetic literature in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Another Look at Biblical Hebrew
Poetry, Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry [ed. Elaine R. Follis; JSOTSup 40; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1987] 1128). In this regard it may be observed again that the relative er never
occurs in the Song after the superscription (see above pp. 7475 on use of e-el). The definite object
marker et appears only sixteen times in the text of M, and at least in some cases its presence does seem
to identify more prosaic statements (1:6*; 2:7*, 14*; 3:15*; 5:3*, 7*, 8*; 7:13*[12*]; 8:4*, 7[bis]*,
12*). There are two possibly prosaic uses of conjunctive waw with cohortative (subjunctive) verb forms
to express purpose: qm(-nn wasbb br, Let me arise that I may make the rounds of the
city (3:2*); nbaqenn immk, that we may seek him with you (6:1*). There are also two
attestations of waw consecutive with imperfect, both in 6:9*: rh bnt wayarh mlkt
plagm wayhallh, When women see her, they praise her; queens and concubines, they bless
her.
336 Here bnt yrlaim is best understood as a vocative and connected with 3:11*, paralleling
bnt iyyn (Daughters of Zion); see below, p. 150 (Notes ad loc.). Since the woman in all other
(baal) 193
(bq) 79, 145, 146
(brtm) 75, 132
(br) 194
(brt) 93
(brkt) 182
(brr) 175
(bem) 156
(bmm) 158, 194
(bat) 82, 183
(bter) 76, 93, 139
(gdy) 131
(gdiyyt) 75
(gal) 156
(gllm) 166
(gl) 76, 155
(gan) 78, 156, 158, 167
(gannm) 157, 194
(dbr) 165, 192
(dba) 156
(degel) 132, 136
(dgl) 76, 166
(Ddwh) 96(n.369)
(dbb) 75, 183, 184
(dd) 9, 40, 82, 95, 125, 128, 131, 132, 156, 165
(ddm) 184
(ddm) 157, 184
(dall) 183

instances is the one who addresses them, she may be the speaker here as well but this remains very
uncertain.
369 Contra Meek, 96, who also cites the theophoric personal name Ddwh (Yahu is beloved?) in 2
Chron 20:37*. A recently discovered Phoenician epigraph from the temple of Astarte at Kition in Cyprus
may attest beloved (dd) as an epithet for Adonis, in association with communal rites of lamentation;
for the text and pertinent discussion, see Brian Peckham, Phoenicia and the Religion of Israel, Ancient
Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. et al.; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1987)esp. 8487.
(delet) 193
(dm) 71
(hn) 192
(hlk) 139
(hmh) 165
(hmm) 175
(hmn) 193
(hinnh) 132, 139
(har) 78
(hrm) 76, 78, 93, 194
(w) 126
(zmr) 75, 89, 139
(zra) 191
(bl) 191
(baelet) 132
(brm) 64, 67(n.292), 131, 157, 194, 198
(drm) 125
(m) 192
() 189
(tm) 191
(im) 182
(hk) 166, 183
(okm) 121
(lm) 182
(llnt) 139
(lp) 139
(amm) 176
(ammqm) 75, 182
(n) 76, 139
(r) 165, 170
(rh) 126
(rzm) 75, 131
(rakkm) 75, 139
(rr) 75, 126
(tnn) 75, 150
(wb) 156
(b) 70, 183
(bm) 70, 125
(r) 192, 198
(np) 75
(yad) 166
(yd) 176
(yn) 81, 165
(ynm) 155
(yebet) 4, 194
(yayin) 128, 132, 183, 184
(ym) 78
(yph) 156, 186
(ypehYp) 70, 81, 183
(y) 131
(yrd) 167
(yrt) 85, 126
(yrk) 149
(ybt) 166
(yn) 165
(ynm) 183
(k) 70, 181, 184, 193
(kawwnm) 137
(k) 125
(kl) 149, 155, 192
(kall) 60, 81, 156, 158
(kper) 76, 132
(kprm) 76, 184
(karkm) 75, 157
(kerem) 74, 85, 194
(karml) 183
(ktel) 75, 139
(ketem) 67(n.292), 166
(kttnet) 165
(l) 74, 119, 125
(lbb) 156
(lbn) 149, 157, 158
(lbn) 176
(lbnn) 158, 183
(la) 193
(llt) 145, 149
/ (lwn / lyn) 132
(lmd) 184
(lipn) 194
(ls n) 156
(mbreket) 176
(mgdm) 188
(migdl) 182, 183
(mgaddlt) 166, 193
(mgn) 155
(midbr) 151, 155
(mdallg) 139
(mh) 158, 181
(mhr) 198
(mt) 193
/ (mr mr) 131, 157, 165, 166
(mawet) 191
(mezeg) 75, 182
(ml) 181
(manyim) 185
(mi) 74, 149
(m) 149
(mayim) 192, 198
(mrm) 126, 183
(millt) 75, 166
(melek) 83
(mlkt) 83, 175
(min) 125, 149, 165
(msab) 131
(mh) 72
(mm) 166
(m) 165
(mayn) 157, 158
(maynt) 157
(mullepet) 72(n.305)
(m) 145, 183, 189
(mqeret) 76, 149
(mqapp) 75, 139
(maqs bm) 194
(mareh) 139, 166, 172
(merkb) 149
(merqam) 75
(mikb) 145
(ml) 120
(matmt) 155
(mtq) 70
(mitrappeqet) 75, 149, 191
(nwehnw) 70, 131
(nidglt) 76, 175, 178
(ndb) 82, 176, 181
(nzlm) 157
(naal) 176, 179
(nl) 156, 158
(nm) 183
(nm) 70
(nepe) 131, 165, 176
(npet) 156
(ninm) 75
(nquddt) 75, 131
(nrd) 131
(nrdm) 157
(ns m) 81
(nqt) 125
(nq) 125, 184, 188
(niqp) 176
(sbb) 139, 145
(sahar) 75, 182
(sbbm) 146
(sg) 75, 182
(ss) 75, 131
(semdar) 76
(smk) 132
(sansinnm) 75, 183
(sapprm) 72(n.305), 166
)( (stw) 75, 139
(obr) 165, 166
(ad) 75, 131, 139
(der) 131
(wr) 133, 157, 168, 191
(ayin) 156, 186, 193
(ir) 145
(y) 131, 134(n.1)
(l) 165
(lmt) 83, 84, 175
(am) 176
(im) 71, 162, 176
(nq) 156
(per) 76, 78
(prm) 76
(m) 156
(r) 165, 168
(rb) 70
)( (rgt) 166, 167
(rm) 182
(eet) 72(n.305), 75, 166
(sn) 149
(pagg) 75, 139
(paz) 166
(plagm) 83
(pards) 157
(peta) 184
(n) 131
(bt) 133
(b) (=beauty) 139
(b) (=gazelle) 78, 137, 139
(awwr) 182
(op) 183
(wr) 193

1 See the Notes, p. 131 for the discussion of the difficult term y.
(awwrn) 75, 156
(a) 165
(llm) 78
(mh) 9
(Qedar) 126
(ql) 139, 165, 194
(qwwst) 165
(qm) 183
(qin) 191, 197
(qn) 157
(qinnmn) 157
(qb) 155
(qbt) 155
(rh) 126
(r) 183
(rabbm) 183, 192, 198
(rb) 83
(rdd) 165
(rhm) 183, 186
(rhb) 175
(rkl) 149
(r) 75, 132
(rlm) 175
(ra) 76
(ra) 158
(rekeb) 131
(rimmn) 157, 184
(ra) 82, 131
(rh) 83, 131, 139, 167
(reh) 82, 139
(r) 83, 172
(ray) 76, 81, 131, 135, 165, 172
(rm) 157
(rm) 83, 155
(rpd) 75, 149
(raqq) 155, 159
(reqa) 75, 184
(rh) 4
(rp) 75, 149
(reep) 191
(ym) 176
(p) 184
/ (e-el) 74, 119, 126, 128, 131, 139, 155, 194
(wb) 181, 185
(lammt) 81, 181
(sw r) 156
(n) 67(n.292), 79
(ann) 79, 132
(annm) 79, 82, 155, 166
(zp) 76
(r) 126, 128
(arret) 75, 126, 128
(r) 3, 67(n.292), 119, 120
(akkl) 155
(s alhebet[-]yh) 104, 191, 197
(lm) 85, 193
(lm) 157
(lm) 155
(alm) 126
(m) 89, 125
(emen) 89, 125
(m) 194
(mrm) 146, 165
(n) 182
(innayim) 166
(qh) 125, 184, 188
(rn) 132
(tmm) 155
/ (trmtrm) 76, 131
(traq) 125
(tmrt) 149
(tlh) 155
(talpiyyt) 75, 155
(taltallm) 75, 166
(tm) 81, 165
(th) 55
(tangm) 82, 183
(tappa) 132, 136, 137, 187
(tirz) 175
(tar) 166
(tq) 77, 102, 184, 187
3. Subjects
Adjuration
84, 134, 137, 145, 146, 165, 168, 171, 185
Adonis
40, 96
Allegory, allegorical interpretation
5, 12, 14, 1516, 1921, 2328, 29, 3132, 33, 34, 38, 9395
Anat
177
Aqiba
6, 13
Apple(s), apple tree
5455, 1367, 191, 195
Asherah
96
Astarte
48, 95
Bride
17, 18, 23, 24, 2526, 35, 36, 80, 160
Bride-price
198
Bridegroom
17, 18, 23, 24, 80, 82
Creation
6768, 98, 100, 103
Daughters of Jerusalem
3, 18, 56, 65, 66, 7677, 80, 85, 97, 127, 128, 150, 171, 173
Dialogue
10, 18, 4748, 55, 62, 6467, 158
Door
50, 53, 168, 169(n.7), 188, 19899
Dove(s)
135, 141, 166, 172, 177
Drama
18, 38, 58, 64, 95
Dumuzi (Tammuz)
40, 4850, 96
Euphemism/double-entendre
5455, 102(n.395)
Excluded lover
168
Eyes
73, 156, 159, 172, 178, 186
Fantasy
141, 145, 165, 170
Garden
5455, 66, 73, 78, 1601, 173, 1789, 187
Hathor
4546
Inanna
4851, 96
Ishtar
48, 5657, 95
Isis
39
Jerome
17
King fiction (see also: literary fiction)
47, 52, 66, 80, 83, 127, 135, 151, 152, 178, 181, 199
Kiss
24, 29, 56, 127, 172, 187
Lilies
79, 136, 1412, 166, 172, 173, 186
Literal interpretation
13, 1819, 21, 22, 37
Literary fiction (see also: king fiction)
47, 80, 83, 85, 135
Love-sickness
79
Marriage song
18, 5859
Maternal home
49, 53, 80, 145, 146, 1889
Mot
196
Mutual possession
66, 173, 185, 187
Neck
72, 159, 186
Nose

395 At times reference is made in the commentary to shades of meaning that attach to certain words or
actions. This may be termed double entendre in the best sense of the term. The language of love is
precisely that by its very nature. But it is important to preserve the double entendre, and not destroy it
by a clinical translation or paraphrase; see the cautions of Jack M. Sasson, On M. H. Popes Song of
Songs *AB 7c+, Maarav 1 (1979) esp. 182. Cf. also Fox, 31015; and Benjamin J. Segal, Double
Meanings in the Song of Songs, DD 16 (198788) 24955.
73, 186
Osiris
39
Passover
5(n.13), 6
Presence/absence
65, 101, 134, 140, 168, 170(n.11)
Psychic (individual soul) interpretation
17, 35, 36, 37
Reshep
191
Sacred marriage (
hieros gamos)
40, 48, 5051, 55, 56
Salvation history
15, 31, 32, 92
Seeking/finding
66, 79, 145, 146, 165, 168, 171, 173
Shullamite
3840, 8182, 84, 181, 185
Solomon
34, 6, 1213, 22, 24, 29, 34, 37, 43, 51, 6566, 77, 80, 82(n.332), 85, 99, 120, 151, 199
Song of admiration

13 E.g., Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction (tr. Peter R. Ackroyd; New York: Harper and
Row, 1965) 485: The fact that the Song of Songs was taken into the canon, and its use as festal scroll at
Passover , are due probably to the allegorical interpretation of its chief characters. Cf. Max L.
Margolis, How the Song of Songs Entered the Canon, The Song of Songs: A Symposium (ed. Wilfred H.
Schoff; Philadelphia: The Commercial Museum, 1924) 917; Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Hohe Lied im
Kanon, ZAW 59 (194243) 189199; Aage Bentzen, Remarks on the Canonization of the Song of
Solomon, Studia Orientalia Ioanni Pedersen (Hauniae: Einar Munksgaard, 1953) 4147; and Andr
Lacocque, Linsertion du Cantique des Cantiques dans le Canon, RHPR 42 (1962) 3844. See also
Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 1011.
11 The very beginning of the womans narrative gives one pause. The man is portrayed as knocking on
her (presumably locked) door at night when she has retired. Gianfranco Nolli (Cantico dei Cantici [La
Sacra Bibbia; Torino/Roma: Marietta, 1968] 112113) asks some pertinent questions: Would he not
have aroused the family of the woman? What would they have said, had they heard her and become
aware of her opening the door? Nolli concludes that the purpose of the song is to serenade the woman,
as Romeo did under Juliets balcony. These questions, reasonable in themselves, nevertheless
historicize the situation in a manner foreign to the nature of the narrative. If the narrative had any
basis in reality at one time, it has now become the vehicle of the womans feelings about the
presence/absence of her lover.
332 The brief address to Solomon in 8:12* may be a partial exception, if this concluding segment is to
be assigned to the man.
134, 177, 179
Song of yearning
127, 188
Spiritual/mystical interpretation
19, 21, 25, 3233
Tammuz (see Dumuzi)
Vineyard
55, 65, 73, 78, 128, 135, 141, 187, 199200
Wasf
43(n.195), 4647, 53, 66, 71(n.303), 72(n.305), 80, 158, 169, 177, 178, 185
Watchmen
53, 97, 145, 146, 168, 171
Wedding festival
38, 39, 50
Wisdom literature
5, 13, 67, 99, 121
Yamm
192
Yoanan of Tiberias
2830
4. Commentators and Other Authors
a/ Pre-Nineteenth Century
Abrabanel, Don Isaac
32
Abrabanel Judah (Leo Hebraeus)
33(n.141)

195 Gerleman, 5272; and Gerleman, Die Bildersprache des Hohenliedes und der altgyptische Kunst,
ASTI 1 (1962) 2430. While Gerlemans argument that the wafs of Song reflect the particular forms and
colors of Egyptian statuary does not carry conviction, the value of Egyptian and other ancient Near
Eastern art for illustration of many of the Songs images and themes is quite graphically displayed in the
recent commentary of Othmar Keel: Das Hohelied (ZBAT 18; Zrich: Theologischer Verlag, 1986); see
also Othmar Keel, Deine Blicke sind Tauben: Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes (SBS 11415; Stuttgart:
303 Especially so in the wafs (poems of descriptive praise of a lovers physique): 4:17*; 5:1016*; 6:4
7*; 7:17 *[6:137:6*+. Although Gillis Gerleman recognized the affective character of the Songs
metaphors in these texts, he argued that the specific imagery of the wafs reflects the particular artistic
traditions of form and color used in ancient Egyptian statuary (Die Bildersprache des Hohenliedes und
die altgyptische Kunst, ASTI 1 [1962] 2430; and his commentary, esp. 5359 and 22427). An
important response, emphasizing the presentational rather than representational character of the
imagery, was offered by Richard N. Soulen, The Wafs of the Song of Songs and Hermeneutic, JBL 86
(1967) 18390. Cf. Fox, 274: since the Egyptian love poets themselves did not take their imagery from
Egyptian art, it is most unlikely that the poet of Canticles would have turned to it as a prime source of
imagery.
Ambrose
22
Anselm of Laon
25
Bede, Venerabilis
23, 24
Bernard of Clairvaux
2528, 127(n.3)
Bze, Thodore de
35
Bossuet, Jacques Bnigne
37, 39, 93(n.361)
Brightman, Thomas
36
Calvin, John
35
Clarius, Bishop of Foligno
36
Coccejus, Johannes

141 See Ginsburg, 58; Rowley, Interpretation, 209; and Vajda, LAmour, 288293. This view found a
wider public through the third of the philosophical Dialogues on Love authored by Isaac Abrabanels
eldest son, Judah (also called Leo Hebraeus); the work is available in English translation: Leone Ebreo,
The Philosophy of Love (Dialoghi dAmore) (tr. F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes; London: Soncino,
1937) especially 220225. In more recent times, similar views have been defended by Ernst Friedrich
Carl Rosenmller, Salomonis regis et sapientis quae perhibentur scripta, Vol. 2 (Scholia in Vetus
Testamentum 9/2; Leipzig, 1830) 270277; and Gottfried Kuhn, Erklrung des Hohen Liedes (Leipzig: A.
Deichert [Werner Scholl], 1926) esp. 6263.
3 Bernard of Clairvaux has caught the spirit of this passionate opening of the Song: The favors I have
received are far above what I deserve, but they are less than what I long for. It is desire that drives me
on, not reason. Please do not accuse me of presumption if I yield to this impulse of love. My shame
indeed rebukes me, but love is stronger than all. I am well aware that he is a king who loves justice; but
headlong love does not wait for judgement, is not chastened by advice, not shackled by shame nor
subdued by reason. I ask, I crave, I implore; let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth (Sermon 9.2 [tr.
CFS 4, 54]).
361 Cf. already the positions of Bossuet and Lowth, summarized above, pp. 3738. This position has
been developed during the past generation especially by Denis Buzy: La composition littraire du
Cantique des cantiques, RB 49 (1940) 16994; Lallgorie matrimoniale de Jahv et dIsral et le
Cantique des cantiques, RB 52 (1944) 7790; Le Cantique des Cantiques. Exgse allgorique ou
parabolique? RSR 39 (1951) 99114; an Le Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Letouzey et An, 1950) esp.
19. Cf. also Alberto Vaccari, La Cantica, I Libri Poetici (La Sacra Bibbia 5/2; Firenze: Salani, 1950) 112:
Since the Canticle is a parable, it should be understood and explained according to the basic laws of the
parable.
36
Cotton, John
36
Cyril of Alexandria
22
Erasmus
41
Eusebius
7(n.21)
Ezra, Abraham ibn
31
Genebrard (Genebradus), Gilbert
36
Gersonides (Levi ben Gershom/n)
32
Ghislerius, Michael (Pope Pius V)
36
Gregory the Great
2224, 29
Gregory of Nyssa
22
Grotius, Hugo
37, 41
Hippolytus of Rome
1415, 30
Jacobi, Johann Fredrich
38
Jerome
17(n.68), 22
John of the Cross
37
Kaspi, Joseph ibn
32
Lapide, Cornelius
37
Leon, Fray Luis de

21 The canonical enumeration of Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the later second century, is preserved in
Eusebius Ecclesiastical History, 4.26.1214. For additional data on the position of the Song in Jewish and
Christian canonical traditions, see Henry Barclay Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek
(Cambridge: University Press, 1900) 198214, 228.
68 Jerome remarks that while Origens writings, in comparison with those of other authors, are
generally superlative, in his commentary on the Song of Songs Origen excelled even himself. The
homilies, Jerome acknowledges, were composed in a popular vein and are of lesser substance; he has
translated them into Latin to provide a sample of his *Origens+ thinking, so that you may reflect how
highly his great thoughts should be esteemed, when even his little ones can so commend themselves
(Lawson, 265).
37
Lowth, Robert
38, 39, 41, 93(n.361)
Luther, Martin
3, 3235
Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon, Rambam)
32
Maldonatus
94
Michaelis, Johann David
4142
Origen
15, 16, 1721, 23, 24, 26, 29, 39, 58, 84(n.337)
Rashbam (Solomon ben Meir)
31
Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac)
31
Robert of Tombelaine
23(n.94)
Rupert of Deutz
25
Saadya (Gaon)
31
Sanctius, Caspar
37(n.169)

337 Proposed identifications of the Daughters represent the history of the Songs interpretation in
nuce. Origen, citing Rom 11:28*, takes them to be the Jewish community, the daughters of this
earthly Jerusalem who, seeing the Church of the Gentiles, despise and vilify her for her ignoble birth; for
she is baseborn in their eyes, because she cannot count as hers the noble blood of Abraham and Isaac
and Jacob, for all that she forgets her own people and her fathers house and comes to Christ
(Commentarium in Canticum canticorum, Book Two, 1:5* ad loc. [Lawson, 92]). They are generally
identified as the assembly of Israel (knt dyrl) in the Targum (e.g., at 2:7* [Sperber, Vol. 4a, 130]).
Joon, 79 (citing in support Rashis interpretation), considers them to represent the gentile nations,
coming as proselytes to Zion. For proponents of the historicizing and dramatic interpretations they
become harem-women (e.g., Delitzsch, 24: ladies of the palace); the wedding-rites theory makes them
the brides cortege (Budde, 3: die weiblichen Hochzeitsgste). In Meeks cultic interpretation they are
female votaries of the fertility goddess (105).
94 PL 79, 471492. The remainder of the Expositio super Cantica canticorum attributed to Gregory (PL
79, 492548) has been identified as an eleventh century contribution of Robert of Tombelaine; cf. Ohly,
Studien, 60 and the literature there cited. In the notes which follow, references are to the newer critical
edition of Gregorys homilies on the Song: Patricius Verbraken (ed.), Sancti Gregorii Magni (CCSL 144;
Tyrnholti: Brepols, 1963) 346 [Expositiones in Canticum canticorum].
169 Jacques Bnigne Bossuet, In Canticum Canticorum, Libri Salomonis (Paris, 1693); reprinted in
Oeuvres compltes de Bossuet, Vol. 3. (Paris, 1863) 412428. Consideration of the Songs literal character
Teresa of Avila
37
Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia
22, 37
Theodoret
22
Tibbon, Moses ibn
32
William of Saint Thierry
23, 25
William of Auvergne
24
Albright, William Foxwell
4(n.9), 125, 139, 155, 156, 158, 165, 178(n.5), 181, 195(n.5)
Alonso Schkel, Luis

in the light of ancient Hebrew and Jewish marriage rites had earlier been suggested by Caspar Sanctius
(Sanchez), Commentarius in Canticum canticorum (Lyon, 1616).
9 See William Foxwell Albright, Archaic Survivals in the Text of Canticles, Hebrew and Semitic Studies
Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver (ed. D. W. Thomas and W. D. McHardy; Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 17;
and, most recently, Pope (720721, 742743) who provides a list of Ugaritic references.
5 The numerical pattern of sixty/eighty/unlimited is not to be correlated with 1 Kgs 11:3* (Solomons
harem). Gordis (94) thinks that 60 and 80, which are three and four score, respectively, represent the
ascending numeration common in Biblical and Semitic poetry for designating a large and indefinite
quantity. The progression seventy/eighty is well attested in Ugaritic. Cf. Albright, Archaic Survivals,
1; and the discussion in Pope, 567568.
5 In contrast to the uncertainty registered above, Albright (Archaic Survivals 7) writes: There can be
little doubt that the mother of the beloved was a mythical figure, possibly a girl who had escaped to the
desert after having become pregnant by a god. A somewhat similar situation is described in the Poem of
the Beautiful and Gracious Gods, where the two infants born of El and two unnamed women are reared
in the Desert of Kadesh. Even if such a mythological association could be proved, however, one is still
left with the question of how this would be understood in the context of Hebrew love poetry. Could the
reference be taken as a compliment to the beloved, adumbrating his/her supposedly divine origins?
There is simply no analogy for such a notion elsewhere in the literature of the Hebrew Bible.
86(n.341)
Alster, Bendt
51(n.241)
Alter, Robert
68(n.294)
Angnieux, Joseph
62
Audet, Jean-Paul
7(n.20), 12(n.51), 13, 60(n.274), 92(n.355), 97(n.376), 98, 99, 120, 121

341 For recent comprehensive discussions, though representing the particular approaches of the
authors to ancient northwest Semitic prosody, see the following: David Noel Freedman,
Prolegomenon to G. B. Gray, The Forms of Hebrew Poetry (New York: Ktav, 1972) viilvi (reprinted in
G. B. Gray, Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns,
1980] 2350); Marjo C. A. Korpel and Johannes C. de Moor, Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew
Poetry, The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry (JSOTSup 74; ed. Willem van der Meer
and Johannes C. de Moor; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988) 161; and Wilfred G. E. Watson,
Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques (JSOTSup 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1984). Approaches to
the prosody of the Song in recent commentaries are quite varied. Relatively full discussion is offered by
Robert, whose sections of critique litteraire include metrical analysis for each poem he recognizes. On
the other hand, while Gerleman offers a fine treatment of the Songs language and style, he avoids
altogether discussion of metrical issues. Especially detailed is the treatment of L. Krinetzki (5075 and
passim) who addresses the whole range of the Songs literary and stylistic features, in the tradition of
Luis Alonso Schkel (Estudios de Potica Hebrea [Barcelona: Flors, 1963]; and Hermenutica de la
palabra, Vol. 2: Interpretacin literaria de textos bblicos [Academia Christiana 38; Madrid: Ediciones
Cristiandad, 1987] = A Manual of Hebrew Poetics [tr. with Adrian Graffy; Subsidia Biblica 11; Rome:
Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1988]). For example, Krinetzki (59) argues that intentional use of assonance
can be discerned in many cases: weak consonants may in his view express ecstatic admiration (1:15
17*), or a feeling of happiness (2:16*); repetition of the consonant b in hassbbm br (3:3*)
suggests the noise of footsteps; harnhamn et-qlk (2:14*) is supposed to imitate the sound of
a shrill cry.
241 See now Bendt Alster, Sumerian Love Songs, Revue dAssyriologie 79 (1985) 12759. Alster
sounds some important notes of caution regarding Kramers broad cultic interpretation of the Sumerian
loveliterature. He suggests that in the love songs especially poetry of popular origin is visible behind
the official stamp of the court or the temple (128).
294 An illuminating discussion of the nature imagery in these chapters of Job is offered by Robert Alter,
The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985) 85110.
20 See Jean-Paul Audet, A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books of the Old Testament in Greek Transcription,
JTS N.S. 1 (1950) 135154, especially 149. See also Jean-Paul Audet, Le sens du Cantique des cantiques,
RB 62 (1955) 202 n.2.

51 Cf. Wilhem Riedel, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen
Kirche (Leipzig: Deichert, 1898); and also the summary remarks of Robert, 45; Rowley, Interpretation,
202; Ohly, Studien, 13; and Gordis, 23. Audet (Le sens, 199200) rightly calls this widely held
assumption into question. It should be emphasized that the issue here is interpretation of the Song in
particular, not the wider impact of Jewish exegetical theory and practice on early Christian exposition of
scripture. For discussion of the latter, with appropriate attention especially to the influence of Philo on
the development of patristic allegorical methodology, the following surveys may be consulted: R. P. C.
Hanson, Biblical Exegesis in the Early Church, CHB 1, 412453; R. P. C. Hanson, Allegory and Event: A
Study of the Sources and Significance of Origens Interpretation of Scripture (London: SCM Richmond:
John Knox, 1959) 97129; Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1952) 136; and especially Henry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Church Fathers:
Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge: Harvard University,
3
1970) 2472.
274 Audet (Le sens, 21114) plausibly suggests that choral singing of wedding songs is meant by the
repeated reference in Jeremiah to the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride (Jer 7:34*;
16:9*; 25:10*; 33:11*). Cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 3334.
355 E.g., Joon, 7376; Andr Feuillet, Le Cantique des Cantiques et la tradition biblique, Nouvelle
Revue Theologique 74 (1952) 92102; and, recently, Jouon, Le drame damour du Cantique des
cantiques remis en son contexte prophtique, Nova et Vetera 62 (1987) 81127; 63 (1988) 81136. Two
general problems with this approach may be noted. First, the metaphor appears in prophetic sources
primarily to portray the broken covenant (i.e., Israels harlotry, as in Hos 13; 4:12*; 9:1*; Jer 3:15*;
and Ezek 16, 23) rather than Israels youthful or future devotion to God (so Jer 2:2*; cf. Isa 54:58*); in
the Song, of course, there is no hint of the womans infidelity. Second, when the marriage/divorce
metaphor appears in prophetic literature there is no ambiguity regarding its interpretation; conversely,
the Song never offers specific warrant for a transferred identification of either the man or the woman.
The basic question thus remains: On what basis does one establish that the Song was composed with
the prophetic theme of covenantal marriage specifically in view? Cf. the terse critical response to
Feuillets position given by Jean-Paul Audet, Love and Marriage in the Old Testament *tr. F. Burke+ Scr
10 (1958) 8081 n. 2; and the more extensive review in Jacques Winandy, Le Cantique des Cantiques:
Pome damour mu en crit de sagesse (Bible et vie chrtienne; Tournai: Castermann [Maredsous],
1960) 1726.
376 Although addressed to proponents of the allegorical approach, the following remarks of Audet
(Love, 8081 n. 2) are equally applicable to cultic-mythological interpretations of the Song: In any
problem the most detailed solution is not necessarily the most accurate. I would even go so far as to say
that in the present case, any temptation to enter too soon into detailed examination may very easily-
conceal a retreat from the much more serious problem raised by the text as a whole. For in such a
situation detailed analysis is only possible on a basis of assumptions, and in the nature of things, with
every move it sinks deeper into erroneous details. So it is with the assumptions themselves that one
must quarrel.
Baer, Y.
17(n.67)
Baillet, Maurice
8(n.27), 125(n.3)

67 The work was completed while Origen was a resident of Caesarea in Palestine, where he would have
had opportunity to engage in dialogue and debate with Jewish scholars on hermeneutical issues. Yet the
extent to which Origens work on the Song is indebted to specific features of rabbinical exegesis remains
uncertain, as does the possibility that rabbinical sources include responses to his views. An intriguing
case for concrete mutual influence has been made by Reuven Kimelman, Rabbi Yoanan and Origen on
the Song of Songs: A Third-Century Jewish-Christian Disputation, HTR 73 (1980) 567595. See also
Gustave Bardy, Les traditions juives dans loeuvre dOrigne, RB 34 (1925) 237; Loewe, Apologetic
Motifs, 169175; Urbach, Homiletical Interpretations, 251270; Y. Baer, Israel, the Christian Church,
and the Roman Empire, from the time of Septimus Severus to the Edict of Toleration of A.D. 313,
Studies in History (SH 7; ed. A. Fuks and I. Halpern; Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1961) 99
106; and, more generally, Nicholas Robert Michael de Lange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-
Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: University Press, 1976).
27 Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les Petites Grottes de Qumrn: Exploration de la
falaise. Les grottes 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 6Q, 7Q, 10Q, Vol. 1: Textes (DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962) 112114;
Vol. 2: Planches, pl. 23/6.
3
The of M can be understood according to traditional Hebrew grammar as a kind of dative of
reference (GHB 133d): with respect to fragrance, your perfumes are pleasing. But there are other
possibilities. The preposition can be taken as asseverative or emphatic (HSyn 283), and thus parallel
to in v 2*: indeed, more pleasing (than) the scent of your perfumes. This presupposes that the
force of the comparative carries over into v 3*, and a parallel with v 2b* emerges. Albright (Archaic
Survivals, 2 n. 4) and Pope (299300) interpret the as comparative, on the basis of Ugaritic usage. The
reading of 6QCant deserves notice: ; along with B (unguentis optimis) it fails to represent
the pronominal suffix your, present in M. On this reading can be interpreted as an attributive
adjective, fine/precious ointments (cf. 2 Kgs 20:13*=Isa 39:2*). Hence one could translate: Truly your
love is finer than wine, indeed (finer than) the scent of precious ointments.
The repetition of (perfume) is particularly effective, and it forms a play on (name).
However, flowing is a doubtful translation; would seem to be the Hopal form of (pour
out), but it is not in agreement with , which is always masculine. Hence changes have been
suggested: (used in Est 2:3*, 9*, 12* for oil of purification) or some form of . None of the
changes is advisable: G () and B (effusum) are guides to the meaning, poured out. In his
Bardy, Gustave
17(n.67), 25(n.104)
Barth, Christoph
191
Barth, Karl
100, 102(n.394)
Barthlemy, Dominique
8
Bartina, Sebastian
142(n.11)
Bea, Augustinius

restoration of 6QCant, Baillet proposes ] [ (cf. BHS, 1325 n. c-c to 1:3*), which
is semantically cogent, since means perfume or a mixture of aromatic herbs (cf. Exod 30:25*; 1
Chr 9:30*, and inCant 5:13*), but it is quite difficult to discern support for the reading in the
published photograph (Maurice Baillet, J. T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les petites grottes de Qumran,
[DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962] Vol. 1, 113; Vol. 2, pl. 23/6).
104 PL 168, 837962 [Commentaria in Cantica canticorum]. Cf. Gustave Bardy, Marie et le Cantique
chez les Pres, BVC 7 (1954) 3241; and Henri de Lubac, Mditation sur lglise (Collection
Theologique, tudes publies sous la direction de la Facult de Thologie S.J. de Lyon-Fourvire 27;
Paris: Montaigne, 1953) 273324.
394 Cf. Karl Barth (n. 390 above), who stresses the import of the Song in completing the thought in Gen
2: It is to be noted that in this second text we hear a voice which is lacking in the first. This is the voice
of the woman, to whom the man looks and moves with no less pain and joy than she to him, and who
finds him with no less freedom than she is found. Implicitly, of course, this voice is heard in Genesis as
well. But it now finds expression in words. And what words! (3/2, 294). For interpretation of the Song
in relationship to Gen 23, see also Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT 2; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1978) 14465.
11 Cf. the Notes, above p. 139. On Bether, cf. Sebastin Bartina, Los montes de Bter (Cant 2, 17),
EstBib 31 (1972) 435444. Bartinas solution of 2:73:1* may not be convincing, but the discussion of
the problems, and the survey of opinions, are helpful.
41(n.185), 92(n.352), 134(n.3)
Bentzen, Aage
5(n.13)
Bird, Phyllis
69(n.297)
Blau, Ludwig
6(n.18)
Bleeker, Claas J.
45(n.215)
Bloch, Joshua
10(n.41)
Bloch, Rene
93(n.357)

185 So, e.g., Denis Buzy, Le Cantique des Cantiques. Exgse allgorique ou parabolique? RSR 39
(1951) 99114; and also the following important commentaries: Athanasius Miller, Das Hohe Lied
bersetzt und erklrt (HS 6/3; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1927); Augustinus Bea, Canticum Canticorum
Salomonis quod hebraice dicitur r Harm (SPIB 104; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1953). Cf. the
response to these and similar viewpoints in Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of
Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 111.
352 See esp. the commentaries of Bea, 5, 13; and Miller, 67, who regards exegetical tradition and
ecclesiastical decision (the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia posthumously at the Fifth
Ecumenical Council = Second Council of Constantinople in 553 C.E.) as the theological grounds for
advocating the primacy of the Songs typical sense. As many scholars have pointed out, however, one
cannot infer from the episode of Theodore that the Church condemned interpretation of the Song along
the lines of human sexual love: see esp. Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des
cantiques, RB 61 (1954) 6889; and Achille M. Brunet, Thodore de Mopsueste et le Cantique des
cantiques, tudes et recherches 9 (1955) 15570.
3 These latter positions are represented respectively by Gordis (47; cf. also NEB); Bea (28) and Loretz (8);
L. Krinetzki (94) and Robert (79); and Gerleman (102).
297 Cf. the fine overview provided by Phyllis Bird, Images of Women in the Old Testament, Religion
and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (ed. Rosemary Radford Ruether;
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) 4188.
18 Cf. Ludwig Blau, Megillot, The Five, JE 8, 429431; and Ismar Elbogen, Der jdische Gottesdienst in
seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965 [= Frankfurt,
4
1931]) 184186.
41 For a detailed study of the E version of the Song, see Joshua Bloch, A Critical Examination of the Text
of the Syriac Version of the Song of Songs, AJSL 38 (192122) 103139. Cf. also Sebastian Euringer, Die
Bedeutung der Peschitto fr die Textkritik des Hohenliedes, Biblische Studien, Vol. 6 (ed. O.
Bardenhewer; Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1901) 115128.
Bonsirven, Joseph
14(n.57)
Bornkamm, Heinrich
33(n.144)
Bowman, Thorlief
72(n.307)
Brenner, Athalya
70(n.301)
Broadribb, Donald
64(n.287), 67(n.292), 74(nn.315, 318), 86(n.343)

357 On anthological style see Andr Robert, Littraires (Genres), DBSup 5, 41011; Rene Bloch,
Midrash in DBSup 5, 12631281; and the remarks of Raymond Tournay in Robert, 1017.
57 Otherwise, e.g., Gordis, 2, and Pope, 92. Cf. also Hanson, Allegory, 3334; and Raphael Loewe,
Apologetic Motifs in the Targum to the Song of Songs, Biblical Motifs: Origins and Transformations
(Studies and Texts 3; ed. Alexander Altmann; Cambridge: Harvard University, 1966) 161. A still useful
summary of older rabbinical views on the Song may be found in Joseph Bonsirven, Exgse rabbinique et
exgse paulinienne (Paris: Beauchesne, 1939) 215235. He emphasizes that the various comments on
the Song attributed to tannaitic sages (first and second centuries C.E.) attest several types of symbolical
readings but do not comprise an allegorical interpretation per se, because there is yet no unified or
systematic exposition of the kind that allegory properly calls for.
144 Cf. Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament (tr. Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch; Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1969) 1618 and esp. 8992.
307 For the development of this approach, see Thorlief Boman, Hebrew Thought compared with Greek
(tr. Jules L. Moreau; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 7684. Keel (Metaphorik, 3339 and esp. 38)
pursues the same line and paraphrases the sense of the simile as follows: Unzugnglich wie der
Davidsturm is deine stolze Haltung (Inaccessible as Davids tower is your proud bearing).
301 Cf. Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978) 145; and
Athalya Brenner, The Israelite Woman; Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Literature (The Biblical
Seminar; Sheffield: JSOT Press/University of Sheffield, 1985) 4650.
287 Donald Broadribb (Thoughts on the Song of Solomon, Abr-Nahrain 3 [196162] 18) attributes to
the woman 118 of the 207 poetic lines he counts in the Song.
315 Cf. Broadribb, Thoughts, 2933.
318 Cf. Broadribb, Thoughts, 3132 (but there is a disconcertingly large number of errors in the
biblical citations); and Ronald J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline (Toronto/Buffalo: University of
Toronto,
2
1976) 7678.
343 Esp. Rudolph, 99100; in the sections of commentary proper, Rudolphs remarks on prosody consist
only of noting the number of lines that comprise the supposed strophes. Cf. also Broadribb (Thoughts,
Brockington, L. H.
119
Brongers, Hendrik A.
191
Brot, Isak
11(n.48)
Brunet, Achille M.
92(n.352)
Brunner, Hellmut
45(n.214)
Bruno, Arvid
58(n.264)

1617) who divides the Song into five major sections of poetry and counts some thirty-five strophes,
averaging six lines each: I. 1:22:3* (1:24*, 56*, 78*, 914*; 1:152:3*); II. 2:417* (2:46*, 7*, 8
10a*, 10b13*, 1417*); III. 3:15:1* (3:14*+5*, 610*; 4:13*, 47*, 811*, 1215*; 4:165:1*); IV.
5:27:14[13]* (5:23*, 46*, 78*, 1013*, 1416*; 6:13*, 47*, 89*, 1012*; 7:13*[6:137:2*], 4
6*[35*], 710*[69*], 1114*[1013*]); V. 8:114* (8:14*, 57*, 810*, 1114*).
48 Helpful overviews of the history of the Songs interpretation can be found in a number of
commentaries, especially the following: Christian David Ginsburg, The Song of Songs and Coheleth (LBS;
New York: Ktav, 1970 [= London, 1857 and 1861]) 20126; Gerleman, 4351; Pope, 89229. The
following surveys may also be noted: Isak Brot, De Allegorische Uitlegging van het Hooglied
voornamelijk in Nederland (Zuijderduijn-Woerden, 1971); Curt Kuhl, Das Hohelied und seine Deutung,
TRu 9 (1937) 137167; David Lerch, Zur Geschichte der Auslegung des Hohenliedes, ZKT 54 (1957)
257277; Roland E. Murphy, Recent Literature on the Canticle of Canticles, CBQ 16 (1954) 111;
Frankfurt am Main Geisteswissenschaftliche Reihe 1; Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1958); Harold H.
Rowley, The Interpretation of the Song of Songs, The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays (Oxford:
Blackwell,
2
1965) 195245; Alberto Vaccari, Il Cantico dei Cantici nelle recenti publicazioni, Bib 9
(1938) 433457; Ernst Wrthwein, Zum Verstndnis des Hohenliedes, TRu 32 (1967) 177212.
214 The major Egyptian love-song collections, along with other examples of Ramesside literature and
art, are generally taken to attest a revival and development of the openness to naturalism inaugurated
in the Amarna age (later 18th dynasty, fourteenth century B.C.E.). See Hellmut Brunner, Grundzge einer
Geschichte der altgyptische Literatur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966) 105106;
White, Study, 7479; and Fox, 18386.
264 Already a century ago, Eduard Reuss called into question speculative efforts to reconstruct the Song
as a coherent drama; his synoptic presentation of six diverse dramatic readings, including Heinrich
Ewalds, illustrated the precariousness of the enterprise (Le Cantique [La Bible 5; Paris: Sandoz et
Fischbacher, 1879] 2441). The following are among the commentators who have defended dramatic
interpretations of the Song during the present century: Guillaume Pouget and Jean Guitton, Le Cantique
des Cantiques (tB; Paris: Libraire Lecoffre [J. Gabalda], 1934,
2
1948) = The Canticle of Canticles (tr.
Bruston, Charles
38(n.172)
Budde, Karl
39, 42, 59, 84(n.337), 125, 159(n.8), 181, 183
Buisson, Ferdinand
35(n.154)
Buzy, Denis
41(n.185), 93(n.361)
Cabassut, A.
21(n.89)

Joseph L. Lilly; The Catholic Scripture Library; New York: Declan X. McMullen, 1948); Albert Hazan, Le
Cantique des Cantiques enfin expliqu (Paris: Librairie Lipzchatz, 1936); and Arvid Bruno, Das Hohe Lied,
Das Buch Hiob: Ein rhythmische und textkritische Untersuchung nebst einer Einfhrung in das Hohe
Lied (Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1956). See also above, p. 38 n. 172.
172 Jacobis three-character reading was popularized a generation later by Heinrich Georg Augustus
Ewald, Das Hohe Lied Salomos bersetzt und mit Einleitung, Anmerkungen und einem Anhang
(Gttingen, 1826); variations on the theory were subsequently defended by, e.g., Ferdinand Hitzig, Das
Hohe Lied (KEH 16; Leipzig, 1855); Otto Zckler, Das Hohelied (Theologische-homiletische Bibelwerk 13;
Bielefeld/Leipzig, 1868 [= The Song of Solomon (tr. W. H. Green; New York: Charles Scribner, 1870)]); and
Charles Bruston, La Sulammite, mlodrame en cinq actes et en vers, traduit de lhbreu avec des notes
explicatives et un introduction sur le sens et la date du Cantique des Cantiques (Paris: Fischbacher, 1891).
It may be noted that at least some proponents of the dramatic interpretation supposed the plot to
reflect real history (Ginsburg, 11); Franz Delitzsch (Das Hohelied untersucht und ausgelegt [Leipzig,
1851]) maintained that the work was most likely of Solomonic provenance. Among the latest critics to
attempt defenses of the dramatic theory are Leroy Waterman, The Song of Songs, Translated and
Interpreted as a Dramatic Poem (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1948), and Alberto Vaccari, La
Cantica, I Libri Poetici (La Sacra Bibbia 5/2; Firenze: Salani, 1950) 111129.
8 Cf. Rudolph, 147; and Wrthwein, 52. Budde (21) is quite clinical.
154 For the Latin text of the letter or certificate of dismissal, which Calvin wrote on behalf of the
Genevan clergy, see A.-L. Herminjard, Correspondance des Rformateurs dans les pays de langue
franaise. Recueillie et publie avec dautres lettres relatives la Reforme et des notes historiques et
bibliographiques, Vol. 9 (Genve/Bale/Lyon: Georg & Cie, 1897 [reprinted Nieuwkoop: B. de Graaf,
1966]) 156160. Cf. Ferdinand Buisson, Sbastien Castellion, sa vie et son oeuvre (15151563): tude
sur les origines du protestantisme libral franais, Vol. 1 (Paris: Hachette, 1892 [reprinted Nieuwkoop: B.
de Graaf, 1964]) 193221, and esp. 19899 for a French translation of the certificate.
89 Detailed surveys of the relevant evidence may be found in the following special studies: F. Cavallera,
A. Cabassut, and M. Olphe-Galliard, Cantique des cantiques. II: Histoire de linterprtation spirituelle,
Dictionnaire de Spiritualit, Vol. 2 (ed. Marcel Viller et al.; Paris: Beauchesne, 1953) 93109; Rosemarie
Herde, Das Hohelied in der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters bis zum 12 Jahrhundert (Mnchener
Beitrge zur Mediavistik und Renaissance-Forschung *Estratto da Studi medievali 3/8 (1967) 957
Cambe, M.
14(n.59)
Caquot, Andr
55(n.252)
Carr, G. Lloyd
40(n.181), 94(n.363)
Cavallera, F.
21(n.89)
Chappuzeau, Gertrud
15(nn.61, 63)
Chnevert, Jacques
17(n.69)

1073+; Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull alto medioeva, 1968); Helmut Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit
der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des Mittelalters (Beitrge zur Geschichte der
Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen 38/3; Mnster: Aschendorf,
1958); and George L. Scheper, The Spiritual Marriage: The Exegetic History and Literary Impact of the
Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ph.D. dissertation; Princeton University, 1971).
59 For a different opinion, see M. Cambe, Linfluence du Cantique des cantiques sur le Nouveau
Testament, RThom 62 (1962) 526; and Brian McNeil, Avircius and the Song of Songs, Vigiliae
Christianae 31 (1977) 2334. Cf. also Jacques Winandy, Le Cantique des Cantiques et le Nouveau
Testament, RB 71 (1964) 161190.
252 CTA 23 (UT 52). For introductory comments, bibliography of relevant studies, and an annotated
translation of the full text, see Andr Caquot, Maurice Sznycer, and Andre Herdner, Textes
Ougaritiques, Tome I: Mythes et Lgendes (Littratures anciennes do Proche-Orient 7; Paris: Cerf, 1974)
35579.
181 See esp. Nathaniel Schmidt, Is Canticles an Adonis Litany? JAOS 46 (1926) 154164; Ricciotti, 116
120; and Rowley, 223242. Cf. more recently Edwin M. Yamauchi, Tammuz and the Bible, JBL (1965)
283290; and G. Lloyd Carr, Is the Song of Songs a Sacred Marriage Drama? JETS 22 (1979) 103114.
363 E.g., Delitzsch; and Vincenz Zapletal, Das Hoheslied kritisch und metrisch untersucht (Freiburg,
1907). Cf. Joon, 2627. For an assessment of the typological approach to the Song, see G. Lloyd Carr,
The Song of Solomon: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Leicester/Downers Grove: InterVarsity,
1984) 2432.
61 See Gertrud Chappuzeau, Die Auslegung des Hohenliedes durch Hippolyt von Rom, JAC 19 (1976)
4581, especially 46 where she characterizes the work as follows: Bei dem Kommentar Hippolyts
handelt es sich zweifellos um einen Predigttext, wahrscheinlich um eine Osterpredigt. Cf. also Ohly,
Studien, 15.
63 Gertrud Chappuzeau, Die Exegese von Hohelied 1, 2a.b und 7 bei den Kirchenvtern von Hippolyt
bis Bernhard. JAC 18 (1975) 131.
Childs, Brevard
99(n.384), 101(n.393), 121, 122
Cohen, Gershon D.
91(n.351)
Cook, Albert
72(n.306)
Cooper, Jerrold S.
53(n.246), 161(n.14)
Copley, Frank O.
168(n.5)
Cross, Frank Moore
8(n.26), 9(n.35), 55(n.253)
Crossan, John Dominic
103(n.396)

69 On this, see Ohly, Studien, 1921; Lawson, 1016; and the expansive discussion in Jacques Chnevert,
Paris: Brouwer; Montral: Bellarmin, 1969).
384 Audet, Love, 8183. This view is developed by Brevard S. Childs into the canonical context,
which he understands to be the theologically appropriate one for interpreting the Song: Introduction to
the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 57379. On the other hand, Gordis (1316)
seems to understand the attribution of the work to Solomon and the connection with Wisdom to be
limited to technical aspects of prosody and music.
393 Cf. Brevard S. Childs, Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985)
18895. The comments that follow were presented in preliminary form in two essays: Roland E.
Murphy, Towards a Commentary on the Song of Songs, CBQ 39 (1977) 49496; and Roland E. Murphy,
A Biblical Model of Human Intimacy: The Song of Songs, The Family in Crisis or in Transition: A
Sociological and Theological Perspective (ed. Andrew Greeley; Concilium 121 [141 in the international
edition]; New York: Seabury, 1979) 6166.
351 For a recent sympathetic restatement of the traditional Jewish perspective, see Gershon D. Cohen,
The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality (The Samuel Friedland Lectures; New York: Jewish
Theological Seminary of America, 1966); reprinted in The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (ed.
Sid Z. Leiman; New York: Ktav, 1974) 26282.
26 Cf. Frank M. Cross, Jr., Le Travail ddition des Fragments manuscrits de Qumrn, RB 63 (1956) 57.
253 Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 1973) 22. Cf. Johannes C. de Moor, New Year with Canaanites and
Israelites, Part Two: The Canaanite Sources (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1972) 1724.
396 While this is not the place to enter into broader discussions of recent developments in biblical
interpretation and hermeneutics generally, there are increasing indications of scholarly recognition that
historical-critical methodology does not in itself yield the exhaustive or final expository word: see, e.g.,
Dahood, Mitchell
74(n.317), 183
Davis, Virginia L.
45(n.211)
Delitzsch, Franz
38(n.172), 39, 58, 84(n.337), 94(n.363), 181, 182, 184
Dpke, Johann Christian Carl
39(n.174)
Dornseiff, Franz
42(n.192)
150
Dubarle, Andr-Marie
14(n.56), 41(n.188), 92(n.352), 98(n.382)

Walter Vogels, Les limites de la mthode historico-critique, Laval thologique et philosophique 36
(1980) 17394; and David Steinmetz, The Superiority of Precritical Exegesis, Theology Today 37 (1980)
2738. On the validity of a texts meaning beyond its original or historical sense, see Hans-Georg
Gadamer, Truth and Method (ed. and tr. Garrett Barden and John Cumming; New York: Seabury, 1975)
esp. 46091 *Supplement I: Hermeneutics and Historicism+; for an assessment of Paul Ricoeurs
hermeneutical contributions to interpretation of biblical texts, see John Dominic Crossan (ed.), The Book
of Job and Ricoeurs Hermeneutics (Semeia 19; Chico: Scholars, 1981), with a select bibliography, 2329.
In the present commentators judgment, the quest for the literal-historical sense of scriptural texts
should not be abandoned, even though the results will only be proximate and need not negate the value
of traditional interpretation. The critical endeavor remains the surest means we possess that the
topography of the text itself will not be overlooked in uncontrolled exegetical flights of fancy.
317 Cf. Mitchell J. Dahood, Canaanite-Phoenician Influence in Qoheleth, Bib 33 (1952) 4445.
211 Fox, 30 and 19799. Cf. also Michael V. Fox, The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 101109; and
Virginia L. Davis, Remarks on Michael V. Foxs The Cairo Love Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 11114.
174 E.g., Johann Christian Carl Dpke, Philologischkritischer Commentar zum Hohen Lied Salomos
(Leipzig, 1829); Heinrich Hirsch Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim oder das Salomonische Hohelied (Wien, 1871;
Breslau: W. Jacobson,
2
1885); and Eduard Reuss, Das Alte Testament bersetzt, eingeleitet und erlutert,
Vol. 5: Die hebrische Poesie (Braunschweig, 1893) 315394.
192 E.g., Stephen H. Stephan, Modern Palestinian Parallels to the Song of Songs, JPOS 2 (1922) 199
227; Franz Dornseiff, gyptische Liebeslieder, Hohes Lied, Sappho, Theokrit, ZDMG 90 (1936) 588
601; and M. Shashar, Song of Songs and Bedouin Love Poetry *Hebrew+ BMik 31 (198586) 36070.
Tournay has provided an extensive overview of comparable data in various Mediterranean and Near
Eastern cultures (in Robert, 337426 *Les paralleles non bibliques+). See also Pope, 5489 and passim.
56 It should be noted, though, that the same metaphors are more explicitly connected with Israel in
the prophecy of Hosea: lily (n) Hos 14:6[5]*: dove (yn) Hos 7:11* and 11:11*; bride (kall)
Hos 4:1314* (and also Jer 2:32*, etc.). Cf. Andr M. Dubarle, La femme couronne dtoiles (Ap., 12),
Eaton, J. H.
59(n.269)
Ebeling, Erich
56
Eissfeldt, Otto
5(n.13), 49(n.229), 59(n.273), 62(n.278)

Mlanges Bibliques rdigs en l honneur de Andr Robert; (Travaux de lInstitut Catholique de Paris 4;
Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1957) 518 n. 2.
188 E.g., Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des cantiques, RB 61 (1954) 6786;
Oswald Loretz, Zum Problem des Eros im Hohenlied, BZ N.F. 8 (1964) 191216; and Leo Krinetzki,
Retractiones zu frheren Arbeiten uber das Hohelied, Bib 52 (1971) 176189.
382 Cf. Andr-Marie Dubarle, Lamour humain dans le Cantique des cantiques, RB 61 (1954) esp. 67,
where he observes that a major problem in the history of the Songs interpretation has been an inability
of many commentators to distinguish between profane (theologically humanistic) and profaned
(licentious or corrupted) love. Along the lines suggested by Audet and Dubarle, a provocative discussion
of the Songs view of human love as at once sexually erotic and implicitly sacral is offered by the French
Protestant scholar Daniel Lys, the title of whose commentary indicates the theological perspective
adopted: Le plus beau chant de la cration: Commentaire du Cantique des Cantiques (LD 51; Paris: Cerf,
1967)esp. 5055; an extensive English summary of Lys view is provided by Pope, 201205. See, more
recently, Daniel Lys, Le Cantique des cantiques: Pour une sexualit non-ambigu, Lumire et Vie (1979)
3953. Cf. also Oswald Loretz, Die theologische Bedeutung des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 10 (1966) 2943.
269 For a useful, succinct survey of available data, see J. H. Eaton, Musics Place in Worship: A
Contribution from the Psalms, Prophets, Worship and Theodicy: Studies in Prophetism, Biblical Theology
and Structural and Rhetorical Analysis and on the Place of Music in Worship (OTS 23; ed. A. S. van der
Woude; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984) 85107. Cf. also Alfred Sendrey, Music in the Social and Religious Life of
Antiquity (Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1974) 77278, esp. 13637 and 16062.
229 Cf. Eissfeldt, Old Testament, 489, where comment is made as follows on Schmkels reading of the
Song: However, a closer examination of such attempts at Interpretation hardly leads to anything more
than the probability, certainly worthy of notice and indeed in other ways significant, that in Israel, as
elsewhere in the world, the language of lovers has been influenced by mythical and cultic diction just
as it is also true that myth has made borrowings from erotic poetry. The consideration of the
relationship between lovepoetry and religious diction may appropriately make more intelligible the
factcertainly in other respects so remarkablenamely, that a collection of quite realistic love songs
could be applied to the relationship between Yahweh and Israel.
273 Wrthwein, 32; cf. also Eissfeldt, Old Testament, 48688.
278 Eissfeldt (Old Testament, 48990) considers approximately twenty-five separate songs or poems to
be the right assumption; Franz Landsberger, on the other hand, is persuaded that the number is far,
far greater than this (Poetic Units Within the Song of Songs, JBL 73 [1955] 21516).
Erman, Adolf
42, 46
Euringer, Sebastian
10(n.41)
Ewald, Heinrich Georg Augustus
38(n.172), 58
Exum, J. Cheryl
6263, 126, 128(n.5)
Falk, Zeev, W.
98(n.379)
Feuillet. Andr
41(nn.186, 187), 76(n.321), 92(n.355), 93, 139

5 The erudite and lengthy discussion on black goddesses offered by Pope (307318) is simply wide of
the mark; cf. Keel, 5355. J. Cheryl Exum (Asseverative al in Canticles 1, 6? Bib 62 [1981] 416419)
points out that the only ostensibly unfavourable comment on the womans appearance is found in 1:6*;
elsewhere her beauty is frequently praised. Hence Exum would look also for an expression of pride in
the appearance of the woman in 1:6*. In this regard, the comment of G. Krinetzki (9) merits
consideration: In the role of a vine-dresser, a young woman reinterprets in a teasing style and in favor
of herself the reigning beauty concept of light colored skin which prevailed in the city (you daughters of
Jerusalem).
379 For the legal-institutional dimensions of ancient Israelite betrothal and marriage, see the following
useful surveys: Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 2438; and Zeev W. Falk, Hebrew Lam in Biblical Times: An
Introduction (Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1964) 12353.
186 E.g., among earlier commentators this century, Joon, 920; and Ricciotti, 121157. Cf. still Andr
Feuillet, Le drame damour du Cantique des cantiques remis en son contexte prophtique, Nova et
Vetera 62 (1987) 81127; 63 (1988) 81136.
187 This viewpoint is especially associated with the seminal work of Andr Robert, which has been
elaborated by Raymond Jacques Tournay and Andr Feuillet. See the lucid summary of the approach
given by Tournay in the preface to Robert, 1025 (and also the bibliography of Roberts studies, 3132).
For Tournays own final position, consult his Quand Dieu parle aux hommes le langage de lamour.
tudes sur le Cantique des cantiques (CRB 21; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1982). Cf. also Andr Feuillet, Le
Cantique des Cantiques: tude de thologie biblique et rflexions sur une mthode d exgse (LD 10;
Paris: Cerf, 1953)esp. 2037.
321 With the following enumeration of the Songs refrains may be compared the analytical chart of
Loretz, 60. He identifies eight refrains, though several are fragmentary or otherwise questionable (esp.
no. 1, comprised of references to the Daughters of Jerusalem, and no. 6, attested only by 5:1ef).
Specific correlations are: refrain a) below = Loretz no. 3; b) = no. 2; d) = no. 4; e) = nos. 5, 7, 8; refrain c)
is not represented in Loretzs chart. Cf. also Feuillet, 3887, who attempts to connect the Songs refrains
to thematic topoi attested in other scriptural sources.
Fisch, Harold
72(n.306)
Fox, Michael V.
13(n.53), 44, 45, 46, 47(nn.222, 223), 48(n.224), 59(n.270), 70(n.302), 71(n.303), 73(n.309), 77(n.322),
84(n.338), 97(n.375), 98(n.378), 102(n.395), 187(n.10). 191

222 Hermann, Liebesdichtung, 11124; see also White, Study, 109114 and 14648. Fox (29294)
observes that Hermann has distorted the analysis of Jolles by attempting to apply the three types of
travesty to isolated motifs in the Egyptian poetry; but he recognizes a royal disguise in the Song
when the woman speaks of her lover as king (1:4*, 12*; 3:711*).
223 Lichtheim, Literature 2, 181. Cf. Fox (326), who contrasts the basically inward orientation of the
Egyptian poetry to the Song: The Egyptian poets, fascinated by what goes on inside a lovers heart,
have the lovers tell us what this is. The poet of the Song, on the other hand, has the lovers concentrate
on each other rather than on their emotions. Of course they do convey their feelings quite effectively,
but they do so mainly by speaking of realities external to their emotional states.
224 Cf. Fox, 24243 and 298300.
270 For references in rabbinical literature, see above, p. 13 n. 53; cf. Wrthwein, 3132, and Fox, 247
50. Some modern choral works based on the Song are noted by Peter Gradenwitz, The Music of Israel:
Its Rise and Growth Through 5000 Years (New York: W. W. Norton, 1949) 201, 207, 209, 269.
302 See above, p. 64 n. 287. Foxs observation is cogent (309): The Song is her song, and there is no
scene from which she is absent. All events are narrated from her point of view, though not always in
her voice, whereas from the boys angle of vision we know little besides how he sees her.
309 Hans-Peter Mller, Vergleich und Metapher im Hohenlied (OBO 56; Freiburg Schweiz:
Universittsverlag; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984). Cf. also Fox (27477 and 32830) who
draws upon the hermeneutical work of Colin Martindale and Paul Ricoeur, invoking the principle of
metaphoric distance in his analysis of the Songs more exaggerated comparisons (e.g., 7:35*[24*]).
According to this approach, the incongruent distance between the anatomical referent and the image
emphasizes the image itself; the cumulative effect of such images is to form a cohesive picture of a
self-contained world in which expressions of human love become transcendently real (32930). Cf.
now also Daniel Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical Poetry (SBLMS 39; Atlanta:
Scholars, 1989) 6168.
322 Fox (20910) prefers the looser term repetends to refrains; but the latter designation seems
justified by indications that the formulae are instructive of literary design and boundaries within the
Song.
338 Commenting on 1:5*, Robert (70) remarks that the appearance of the daughters is a dramatic
trait. Whereas the woman seemed to be alone, soliloquizing, she suddenly appears to be involved in a
kind of dialogue with the daughters, which enables her to express her feelings more fully. This recalls
Freedman, David Noel
85(n.341), 87(n.346)
Fuerst, Wesley J.
59(n.272), 131, 192
Fulco, William
191
Gadamer, Hans-Georg
103(n.396)
Galling, Kurt
40(n.182), 59(n.268)

the function of the chorus in ancient Greek tragedy, and is a simple literary process. Cf. also the remarks
of Fox, 302303.
375 On the Phoenician cult of Adonis, see Noel Robertson, The Ritual Background of the Dying God in
Cyprus and Syro-Palestine, HTR 75 (1982) 31359. The evidence accumulated by Pope (21029) to
suggest a connection between the Song and a Canaanizing mortuary cultusfeaturing the marza, a
love feast celebrated with wine, women, and song (228)is fascinating, but the specific thematic links
are unconvincing as regards Sitz im Leben and literary character; the Song simply does not portray
sexual revelry as a means of overcoming the power of death. Cf. the remarks of Fox, 243.
378 The individuality of the Songs lovers, within a particular socio-cultural context, is correctly stressed
by Fox (308), this in response to Leo Krinetzkis psychological treatment of them along Jungian lines as
male (Animus) and female (Anima) sexual archetypes (Die erotische Psychologie des Hohen Liedes, TQ
150 [1970] 40416).
10 Cf. John Trever, Apple, IDB 1 (A-D), 175176; and Fox, 107, who understands the fruit to be the
apricot.
272 As suggested by J. G. Wetzstein, Die syrische Dreschtafel, Zeitschrift fr Ethnologie 5 (1873) 270
302. It is surprising how influential Wetzsteins study has remained, in view of the problem stated
succinctly by Wesley J. Fuerst: The most serious objection to the wedding cycle theory stems from the
fact that nineteenth-century Syrian customs cannot illuminate very well the situation in Old Testament
Israel (The Books of Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Lamentations: The Five Scrolls [CBC;
Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975] 166).
182 Commentaries which developed early versions of the theory include the following: Wilhelm
Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung
[Heinz Lefaire], 1926); W. O. E. Oesterley, The Song of Songs: The Authorized Version together with a
New Translation, an Introduction and Notes (London: Golden Cockerel, 1936); and Max Haller, Das
Hohe Lied in Max Haller and Kurt Galling, Dir fnf Megilloth (HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul
Siebeck), 2146.
268 E.g., Morris Jastrow considered the Song to be a loosely structured anthology of twenty-three or
more disparate love ballads and folk songs (The Song of Songs, Being a Collection of Love Lyrics of
Ancient Palestine: A New Translation Based on a Revised Text, together with the Origin, Growth, and
Gardiner, Alan H.
44(n.201)
Geller, Stephen A.
86(n.344)
Gerleman, Gillis
4, 5(n.11), 9(n.33), 10(n.43), 11(n.48), 18(n.70), 43, 60(n.275), 70, 71(n.303), 85(n.339), 86(n.341),
100(nn.389, 391), 128, 131, 134, 135, 136, 14142, 147(n.4), 149, 150, 151, 152, 158(n.1), 159, 161,

Interpretation of the Songs *Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1921). More recently, Ernst Wurthwein (Das
Hohelied in Ernst Wurthwein, Kurt Galling, and Otto Plger, Die fnf Megilloth [HAT 18; Tbingen: J. C.
B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1969+ 25) speaks of love songs (Liebeslieder) and antiphonal singing
(Wechselgesnge). Cf. also Michael D. Goulder, The Song of Fourteen Songs (JSOTSup 36; Sheffield:
JSOT/University of Sheffield, 1986).
201 Text and studies: Alan H. Gardiner, The Library of A. Chester Beatty: Descriptions of a Hieratic
Papyrus with a Mythological Story, Love Songs, and Other Miscellaneous Texts. The Chester Beatty
Papyri, No 1 (London: Oxford University, 1931) 2738 and pls. 1617, 2226, 2930; mile Suys, Les
chants damour du papyrus Chester Beatty I, Bib 13 (1932) 20927; White, Study, esp. 17785; Fox, 51
77 [translation and notes], 393404 [hieroglyphic text].
344 So James L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History (New Haven/London: Yale
University, 1981)esp. 158. Kugels argument that even in so-called synonymous parallelism the
secondary segments do not simply repeat but emphasize, extend, and complete the poetic image is
cogent. His use of / and // to represent partial and full pauses in clause structures is adopted below.
However, as regards analysis of prosodic lineation and distinction between structures of prose and
poetry, a more useful approach is outlined by Stephen A. Geller, Parallelism in Early Biblical Poetry
(Harvard Semitic Monographs 20; Missoula: Scholars, 1979)esp. 552.
11 For example, Gerleman (7172) considers parallels with Egyptian poetry to support an upper-class
provenance for the work.
33 See the analysis of Gerleman (7781) who characterizes G as exhibiting almost slavish fidelity to a
Hebrew Vorlage which is very close to the Massoretic Text (77).
43 See the discussion in Gerleman, 8283.
70 E.g., Theophile J. Meek, The Song of Songs: Introduction and Exegesis, The Interpreters Bible, Vol. 5
(ed. George Arthur Buttrick et al.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1956) 92. Cf. also Gerleman, 44; and Gordis, 3.
275 Friedrich Horst, Die Formen des althebrischen Liebesliedes, Orientalistische Studien, Enno
Littmann zu seinem 60. Geburtstag berreicht (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1935) 4354 (reprinted in Friedrich
Horst, Gottes Rechte: Gesammelte Studien zum Recht im alten Testament [ed. Hans Walter Wolff; TB 12;
Mnchen: Chr. Kaiser, 1961] 17687). Cf. Roland E. Murphy, Form-Critical Studies in the Song of
Songs, Int 27 (1973) 41322. Form-critical analysis, with close attention to rhetorical patterns, is a
particular strength of Leo Krinetzkis earlier commentary: Das Hohe Lied: Kommentar zu Gestalt und
162(n.18), 165, 166, 169(nn.6, 8), 170(n.12). 171(n.17), 172(nn.18, 21, 22), 175, 182, 183, 184, 185(n.2),
186(nn.4, 5, 7), 187(nn.9, 12), 188(n.14), 191, 195(n.2), 198(n.15), 200(n.24)

Kerygma eines alttestamentlichen Liebesliedes (KBANT; Dsseldorf: Patmos, 1964). His recent
commentaries treat form-critical issues more succinctly: Gnter Krinetzki, Hoheslied (NEchB; Wrzburg:
Echter, 1980); Kommentar zum Hohenlied: Bildsprache und Theologische Botschaft (BET 16; Frankfurt
am Main/Bern: Peter D. Lang, 1981). In accord with the format of the BKAT series, Gerlemans
commentary offers a discussion of Form for each pericope of the Song.
339 Following the suggestion of Hugo Winckler and Julius Wellhausen, many modern commentators
(e.g., Ricciotti, 200202; Miller, 26; Rudolph, 123; Gerleman, 99; and Pope, 320; cf. also NAB and NEB)
emend the vocalization of M, which is fully supported by the ancient versions in this instance (e.g., G
and B pelles Salomonis) to read Salmah here rather than Solomon. This reading
may be correct, providing a closer parallel to the preceding tents of Qedar, but given other
references to Solomon in the text, it seems preferable to retain M in 1:5*, while recognizing the
possibility of an intentional wordplay.
389 See Gordis, 16; and Gerleman, 8385, whose commentary deliberately omits the Ziel section,
which is otherwise a regular feature of volumes in the BKAT series. Cf. Fuerst, 199200.
391 Gerleman, 84; cf. Rudolph, 105109.
4 Gerleman, 133.
1 So, e.g., Gerleman, 154158; Wrthwein, 5354; and Loretz, 3031.
18 Cf. Wrthwein, 55; and Gerleman, 162.
6 The attempts of both Pope (522524) and Gerleman (165: Trklagegedicht) to adduce this parallel to
our passage are unconvincing.
8 Although Gerleman (177) has exaggerated the influence of Egyptian pictorial art in these descriptions,
his words have relevance for the treatment of the man, where the terms seem particularly appropriate
for a statue or a picture (172): The path to understanding the metaphorical language of the Song does
not always lead through exterior appearance. The expressive power of these images is associated to a
very high degree with their derivation from an erotic content that is bound up with feeling. Thanks to
the emotional content, they are to be acknowledged as sensuous even when there is a minimum of
reality expressed by them.
12 There is no room for Gerlemans suggestion (165) that the description of the dew-laden hair suggests
the majesty of youth.
17 So Gerleman, 172.
21 Gerleman (177) rightly rejects the suggestion of Rudolph (160) that the reference is to a tattoo, or to
blue veins. Such interpretations exaggerate the representational aspect of the description.
Ginsberg, Christian David
11(n.48), 32(n.138, 140), 33(n.141), 36(n.157), 38(n.172), 176, 197

2 Contra Gerleman, 192194.
4 Gerleman (198) regards it as a witty remark (witzigen Einfall) that interrupts the description.
5 However, Gerleman (198) would regard the lilies as having merely stylistic effect, for emotionalnot
visualpurposes.
9 Cf. Hermann, Liebesdichtung, 9495. Gerleman (203) appropriately cites a line from an Egyptian love
poem collected by Hermann (Liebesdichtung, 94): it is the breath of your nose that keeps me alive.
12 So Gerleman, 207.
14
Gerleman (211) appropriately compares Deut 29:18*, the watered soil and the parched ground; cf.
also Matt 13:52*, new and old. He refers also to the Egyptian poem of the little sycamore in the
Songs of the Orchard (Simpson, Literature, 315):
These servants of yours
come with their stuffs,
bringing beer of every sort,
all kinds of kneaded dough for beer,
heady wine of yesterday and today,
all kinds of fruit for enjoyment.
Here yesterday and today connote totality, every sort of or the like.
2 So Gerleman, 215; and Wrthwein, 67.
15 Rudolph, 183; Gerleman, 220; and L. Krinetzki, 250251.
24 Gerleman (223) considers v 14* to be a continuation of v 13*, in the sense that the concluding words
are those which the man asks to hear. But on the analogy of 2:17*, it is more likely that the verses are to
be read as dialogue, with v 14* assigned to the woman. It has been suggested that the original setting of
this exchange is a lovers game of hide and seek (Marcus Antonius van den Oudenrijn, Het Hooglied
[BOT 8/3; J. J. Romen & Zonen, 1962] 44).
138 His exposition figures prominently, alongside Rashis and the text of the Targum, in Rabbinic
Bibles published and often reprinted from the sixteenth century onward. Samples of Ibn Ezras
treatment of the Song can be found in the commentary of Ginsburg, 4446; cf. also Pope, 103104.
Ginzberg, Louis
121(n.9)
Gollwitzer, Helmut
101(n.392)
Gonzles, Angel
68(n.296)
Good, Edwin M.
68(n.295)
Gordis, Robert
4(n.8), 12(n.51), 14(n.57), 18(n.70), 99(n.384), 100(n.389), 125, 126, 132, 133, 134(n.3), 137(n.21), 150,
151, 156, 161, 178(n.5), 183, 184, 191, 193, 198, 199(nn.19, 20)

140 On the work of these commentators, see Ginsburg, 4657; Rowley, Interpretation, 200201; and
Vajda, Lamour, 141145, 179190, 245252. Cf. A. S. Halkin, Ibn Anins Commentary on the Song of
Songs, Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (ed. Saul Liebermann; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of
America, 1950) 389424.
157 Thomas Brightman, Scholia et analysis in Canticum canticorum (Basel, 1614). A revised and
abridged English translation was published later: A Commentary on the Canticles, or the Song of
Salomon. Wherein the Text is Analised, the Native signification of the Words Declared, The Allegories
Explained, and the Order of times whereunto they relate Observed in The Workes of that Famous
Reverend, and Learned Divine, Mr. Tho. Brightman (London, 1644). Ginsburg calls Brightmans analysis
the fullest development of the Chaldee *i.e., targumic+ interpretation Christianized and provides an
extensive summary (7174).
392 Contra Helmut Gollwitzer, Song of Love. A Biblical Understanding of Sex (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1979) 30. While Gollwitzers reading of the Song from the point of view of modern culture is in many
respects provocative, it also illustrates the danger of too quickly bypassing the ancient social and
canonical contextualization of the poetry.
296 Cf. Angel Gonzles, El lenguaje de la naturaleza en el Cantar de los Cantares, EstBib 25 (1966)
24282.
295 Cf. Edwin M. Good, The Unfilled Sea: Style and Meaning in Ecclesiastes 1:211*, Israelite Wisdom:
Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien (ed. John G. Gammie et al.; Missoula:
Scholars, 1978) 5973; and, in the same volume, Hans-Jrgen Hermisson, Observations on the Creation
Theology in Wisdom, 4357.
8 Robert Gordis, The Song of Songs and Lamentations: A Study, Modern Translation and Commentary
(New York: Ktav,
2
1974) 23.
21 So Gordis, 28; see the Notes, above p. 133.
19 So Gordis, 100.
20 Gordis, 100101.
Gordon, Cyrus H.
89(n.349)
Goshen-Gottstein, Moshe H.
158(n.5)
Goulder, Michael D.
59(n.268)
Gradenwitz, Peter
59(n.270)
Graetz, Heinrich H.
39(n.174), 42, 149
Greengus, Samuel
50(n.235)
Greenspahn, Frederick E.
75
Greer, Rowan A.
19(n.80), 20(n.82), 22(n.91)
Grossberg, Daniel
73(n.309), 90(n.350)
Gruber, Mayer I.
181
Guitton, Jean
58(n.264)
Halkin, A. S.
32(n.140)
Hall, Basil

349 As observed by Cyrus H. Gordon, Review of Marvin Popes Song of Songs, JAOS 100 (1980) 356.
235 Jacobsen, Treasures, 35. Cf. Samuel Greengus, Old Babylonian Marriage Ceremonies and Rites, JCS
20 (1966) 5572.
80 Lawson, 41. See also the remarks of Greer, Origen, 23.
82 Origens indebtedness to Platonic thought is well known; see especially Harry Austryn Wolfson, The
Philosophy of the Church Fathers: Faith, Trinity, Incarnation (Cambridge: Harvard University,
3
1970) 270
280 and 571573. Greer calls Origen a Christian Platonist and observes that he as well as Plotinus,
must be regarded as one of the founders of Neoplatonism (Origen, 5; see also 912, 2528).
91 An insightful discussion of Theodores exegetical methods and hermeneutical emphases, in
comparison with those of Origen, is provided by Rowan A. Greer, Theodore of Mopsuestia: Exegete and
Theologian (Westminster: Faith, 1961) 86131. On Theodores work as exegete, see also Smalley, Study,
1420; and Maurice F. Wiles, Theodore of Mopsuestia as Representative of the Antiochene School,
CHB 1, 489510.
350 See also 4:1*, 9*, 10*, 12*; and 5:9*. Cf. now the discussion of this prosodic design in Daniel
Grossberg, Centripetal and Centrifugal Structures in Biblical Poetry (SBLMS 39; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989)
7781.
37(n.166)
Haller, Max
40(n.182), 119
Hallo, William W.
52(n.242)
Hanson, R. P. C.
12(n.51), 14(n.57), 15(n.62), 16(n.65)
Harper, Andrew
39(n.178)
Hazan, Albert
58(n.264)
Held, Moshe
56
Herde, Rosemarie
21(n.89)
Herder, Johann Gottfried von
3839, 42, 43
Herdner, Andre
55(n.252)
Hermann, Adolf
43, 47, 156, 187(n.9)
Herr, Moshe David
28(n.123)
Herrmann, Wolfram
51(n.237), 158(n.5)
Hicks, R. Lansing
198(n.12)

166 Cf. Basil Hall, Biblical Scholarship: Editions and Commentaries, CHB 3, 8283.
242 See Jacobsen, Harps, 87. On the bal. bal. e, and other Sumerian literary genres associated with cult,
see William W. Hallo, The Cultic Setting of Sumerian Poetry, Actes de la XVII
e
Rencontre
Assyriologique Internationale: Bruxelles, 30 juin-4 juillet 1969 (ed. Andr Finet; Gembloux: J. Duculot,
1970) 11634.
62 See above, p. 9 n. 36. Other examples of Hippolytus allegorization of the Song are discussed briefly
by Hanson, Allegory, 116117, 315.
65 Origen was a younger contemporary of Hippolytus and may have been acquainted with the latters
interpretation of the Song, but there is no clear evidence to support this. Cf. Hanson, Allegory, 115116
and 251 n. 5.
178 See, e.g., the critique of these views offered by Andrew Harper, The Song of Solomon, with
Introduction and Notes (The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1902,
2
1907); and also Rowley, 214215 and 219221.
237 Cf. Wolfram Herrmann, Gedanken zur Geschichte des altorientalischen Beschreibungslieder, ZAW
75 (1963) 17697.
Hitzig, Ferdinand
38(n.172)
Honeyman, A.
155
Horst, Friedrich
60, 125, 127(n.1), 134, 140, 145, 158, 168(n.3), 178, 195(n.3), 199(n.22)
Hurwitz, Avi
5(n.10)
Jacobsen, Thorkild
49, 50, 51(n.240), 52(n.242)
Jassy, Oswald Newschotz de
39
Jastrow, Morris
59(n.268), 72(n.305)
Jolles, Andr
47

12 See the Notes above, and now also R. Lansing Hicks, The Door of Love, Love and Death in the
Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of Marvin H. Pope (ed. John H. Marks and Robert M. Good; Guilford,
Conn.: Four Quarters, 1987) 153158.
1 For these respective genre designations, cf. Horst, Formen, 186 and 182.
3 So Horst (Formen, 184), who further identifies these lines as a dream experience; and similarly,
e.g., Rudolph (155156) and Wrthwein (58).
3 Cf. Horst, Formen, 185; similarly Loretz, 49; and Robert, 300.
22 So Horst, Formen, 183.
10 See especially the nuanced expression of this position offered by Raymond Tournay in the
commentary of Andr Robert, Le Cantique des Cantiques (tB; Paris: J. Gabalda, 1963) 21: Although it is
always delicate to handle, the linguistic criterion orientates us also to the Persian period. He then lists
the lexical items usually supposed to be Persian loan-words, such as pards (paradise) in 4:13* and
karkm (saffron) in 4:14*, and claims that there are as well at least seventeen Aramaic terms used in
the song: zp, nr (1:6*); lmh (1:7*); rwzym (1:11*); brwt (1:17*); ktl, rkym (2:9*); stw (2:11*);
pgh (2:13*); wq (3:2*); z (3:8*); np (5:3*); bb (6:11*); mzg, swg (7:3*[2*]); rpg (8:5*); and probably
also Iph (4:4*). Cf. Max Wagner, Die lexikalischen und grammatikalischen Aramaismen im
alttestamentlichen Hebrisch (BZAW 96; Berlin: Alfred Tpelmann, 1966); and Avi Hurwitz, The
Chronological Significance of Aramaisms in Biblical Hebrew, IEJ 18 (1968) 324340, who lays out
prudent conditions concerning the use of Aramaisms as a criterion of lateness in dating Hebrew
literature. He allows the possibility that the Song was written in a northern dialect which shared with
Aramaic a significant number of linguistic features unattested in the standard Biblical Hebrew of the
classical Jerusalem dialect.
240 Jacobsen, Harps, 116.
Joon, Paul
37(n.167), 41(n.186), 84(n.337), 92(n.355), 94(n.363), 125, 191, 192
Keel, Othmar
43(n.195), 734, 79(n.324), 81(n.329), 128(n.5), 134(n.6), 135, 141, 161(n.14), 172(n.19), 182, 184,
186(n.8), 188(n.13)
Kessler, R.
80(n.327)
Kimelman, Reuven
17(n.67)
Kopf, L.
175
Korpel, Marjo C. A.
85(n.341)
Kramer, Samuel Noah

167 See above, n. 147. For broader reviews of this line of interpretation, and pertinent bibliographical
data through the eighteenth century, the following may usefully be consulted: Paul Joon, Le Cantique
des Cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exgtique (Paris: Gabriel Beauchesne,
2
1909) esp. 4548;
Giuseppe Ricciotti, Il Cantico dei Cantici: Versione critica dal testo ebraico con introduzione e commento
(Torino: Societ editrice internazionale, 1928) esp. 5457. It should be observed, however, that the label
naturalistic as applied to the views of Grotius, Herder, and other critics is defensive (of allegorical
readings) and at least potentially misleading as regards the hermeneutical sensitivities of the critics
themselves.
324 For detailed discussion of the evidence, see Keel, Metaphorik, 6378 and related illustrations.
329 The themes of this segment, as well as the repetition of the epithet bride, strongly suggest its use
as an epithalamium, and perhaps its origin in a wedding context. Cf. Keel, 173, who argues that this unit
builds to a high point of the Song in 5:1*.
6 ANEP, 60 (no. 190); cf. Keel, 60, 6263, 66.
19 E.g., Gerleman (174) understands milk and fullness as referring to the well-being and plenty the
doves enjoy. L. Krinetzki (191) relates the milk to the whiteness of the doves and hence of the eyes.
Pope (502, 538539) sees the doves Splashing in the milky spray, Sitting by brimming pools. Cf. also
Keel, 187189.
8 Cf. the Odyssey, 6.162169. Cf. also the illustration and discussion in Keel, 224230.
13 For the history of the literary use of the mandrake, see Pope, 647650; cf. also the comments and
illustrations in Keel, 236239.
327 Though the study is not easily accessible, an important analysis of the Songs epithets and other
rhetorical features was published by R. Kessler, Some Poetical and Structural Features of the Song of
Songs (Leeds University Oriental Society Monograph Series 8; Leeds, 1957) esp. 19; see the useful
summary in Pope, 4751.
40(n.184), 48, 96(n.370)
Krinetzki, Leo (=Gnter)
41(n.188), 60(nn.275, 276), 86(n.341), 98(n.378), 127, 128(n.5), 131, 134(n.3), 135, 137(n.23), 141, 145,
146(n.1), 150, 170(nn.10, 14), 172(n.19), 184, 195(n.4), 197(n.11), 198(n.15)

184 Cf. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient
Sumer (Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1969) 85106; and Pope, 210229.
370 Cf. Samuel Noah Kramer, The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient
Sumer (Bloomington/London: Indiana University, 1969), 90, 98103.
276
See also the overview in Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 98124. With this analysis may be compared the
eleven Gattungen in the Song recognized by G. Krinetzki (35):
1. Songs of Admiration (Bewunderungslieder), which generally begin with a simile or metaphor
and conclude with a wish, proposal, or request: 1:911*, 1517*; 2:13*; 4:1011*; 6:45b*, 10*; 7:7
10*[69*].
2. Image Songs (Bildlieder), exhibiting three subtypes: (a) metaphorical: 1:1314*; 4:12*; (b)
comparative: 4:1315*; (c) allegorical: 1:12*; 2:1517*; 6:3*; 7:14*[13*] (cf. also 8:14* and 6:2*).
3. Songs of Description (Beschreibungslieder): 3:68*, 910*; 4:17*, 89*; 6:5c7*; 7:16*[6:13
7:5*]; 8:5ab* (cf. 5:1016*), the first two of which are identified more precisely as Wedding Songs
(Hochzeitslieder).
4. Self-Descriptions (Selbstschilderungen), spoken by the young woman in 1:56* and by the
brothers in 8:810*.
5. Boast Songs (Prahllieder), setting the young womans triumph over against the possessions of
an oriental monarch: 6:89*; 8:1112*.
6. Tease (Scherzgesprche), found only in 1:78*.
7. Dialogues (Wechselgesprche), which are primarily a redactional creation, combining individual
elements of various genres: 4:165:1d*; 5:816*; 6:12*; 8:1314*.
8. Descriptions of Experience (Erlebnisschilderungen): 2:89*, 1013*; 3:14*; 5:27*.
9. Songs of Yearning (Sehnsuchtslieder): 1:24*; 2:45*; 2:14*; 7:1213*[1112*]; 8:12*, 67*
(cf. 2:10bc*, 13cd*; 4:16*).
10. Adjuration Song (Beschwrungslied): 2:7*=3:5*=8:4* (cf. 5:8*).
11. Summons to Joy (Aufforderung zur Freude): 3:10e11* and 5:1ef*.
23 So NEB; L. Krinetzki, 119; and others.
Kugel, James L.
31(n.134), 86(n.344)
Kugler, Franz X.
95(n.367)
Kuhl, Curt
11(n.48)
Kuhn, Gottfried
33(n.141), 119, 176, 184
28(n.123), 29(n.124)
Lacocque, Andr
5(n.13)
Lambert, W. G.
57
Landsberger, Franz
62(n.278)
Landy, Francis
76(n.320), 161(n.14)

1 For details, see especially L. Krinetzki, 142143.
10 Cf. L. Krinetzki, 179.
14 Contra L. Krinetzki, 179. Moreover, in order to understand the night visit of the lover, one cannot
simply assume, as Krinetzki does, that the man and the woman are betrothed. Rather, the poetry moves
in the realm of fantasy.
4 G. Krinetzki (2526) suggests that the reference to the apple tree in 8:5b* is meant to recall the
comparison of the man to an apple tree in 2:3*; if it is he who now speaks, the sense is: with me,
through my body and my tenderness have I aroused you. In this case, the man would also be drawing a
comparison between the woman and her mother (cf. 3:4*).
367 This text and other references in the Song have been supposed to reflect Akkadian Ishtar in her
double capacity as goddess of love and war: see Franz X. Kugler, Vom Hohen Lied und seiner
kriegerischen Braut, Scholastik 2 (1927) 3852. Cf. also Hans-Peter Mller, Die lyrische Reproduktion
des Mythischen im Hohenlied, ZKT 73 (1976) esp. 2426; Mller attempts to chart a middle course
between literalistic and cultic-mythological readings of the Song.
124 Cf. Samuel Tobias Lachs, The Proems of Canticles Rabba, JQR 56 (196566) 225239.
320 The discussion in this section draws upon an earlier study: Roland E. Murphy, The Unity of the Song
of Songs, VT 29 (1979) 43643; cf. also Roland E. Murphy, Towards a Commentary on the Song of
Songs, CBQ 39 (1977) 48296. For another approach to the unity of the Song, emphasizing the rhythm
of recurrence of association, see Francis Landy, Beauty and the Enigma: An Inquiry into Some
Interrelated Episodes of the Song of Songs, JSOT 17 (1980) 55106; and Francis Landy, Paradoxes of
Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs (BLS; Sheffield: Almond, 1983).
Lange, Nicholas Robert Michael
17(n.67)
Lauterbach, Jacob Z.
28(n.123)
Lawson, R. P.
17(n.69)
Leclercq, Jean
25, 26(nn.112, 113)
Leiman, Sid Z.
6(n.15)
Lemaire, Andr
139
Lerch, David
11(n.48), 12(n.50)
Lichtheim, Miriam
47
Littledale, Richard Frederick
12(n.50)
Loewe, Raphael
14(nn.57, 58), 17(n.67), 19(n.81), 30(n.132), 31(n.136)

112 On the compositional history of the work, see especially the introductory essay of Jean Leclercq in
CFS 7, viixxx.
113 Cf. Jean Leclercq, Monks on Marriage: A Twelfth-Century View (New York: Seabury, 1982) 7386.
Leclercq points out very effectively how the language of (nuptial) sexual union is much to the fore in
Bernards Sermones. Even when Bernard enters fully into the metaphor of the spiritual marriage of the
human soul with God, sexual references are never taboo, or the object of repression. The boldness of
the erotic imagery is, of course, based on the explicit language of the Song. Cf. also Jean Leclercq, Monks
and Love in Twelfth-Century France: Psycho-Historical Essays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979) especially 16
23.
50 So, respectively, David Lerch, Hoheslied, II. Auslegungsgeschichtlich, RGG
3
3, 431, and Samuel
Oettli, Das Hohelied, Die Poetischen Hagiographen (KK A/7; Nordlingen: C. H. Beck, 1889) 167. For the
Christian reader, such pejorative assessments can be amply justified by examining the work of Richard
Frederick Littledale, A Commentary on the Song of Songs From Ancient and Medieval Sources (London:
1869). Despite this compilers good intentions, his florilegium of sources is rather bewildering, if not
defeating, for the modern student of the Song.
58 The same reservation applies even more strongly to mystical interpretations of the Song reflected in
the Zohar and other Jewish Qabbalistic literature. Supposed connections between these sources and
early Jewish interpretation are summarized at length by Pope, 99101 and 153179 (where the
discussion of Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess [New York: Ktav, 1967] is cited extensively). See also
Loewe, Apologetic Motifs, 184193; Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and
Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America,
2
1960) 3642 (and especially the
Appendix D contribution of Saul Lieberman); Gershom Scholem, Ursprung und Anfnge der Kabbala
Loretz, Oswald
41(n.188), 56, 67(n.291), 76(n.321), 86(n.342), 87(n.345), 93(n.360), 99(n.382), 104(n.399), 121(n.7),
132, 134, 156, 158(n.1), 159(n.11), 166, 168(n.1), 175, 181, 182, 186(n.7), 195(n.3), 198(nn.14, 16, 17),
199(n.21)

(SJ 3; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1962) especially 17, 331342; and Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah
and Its Symbolism (tr. Ralph Manheim; New York: Schocken, 1965) 3335, 138142.
81 A similar contextual argument is found in Origens discussion of the books title, which he
understands to express the superlative in relation to six earlier (i.e., pre-Solomonic) hymnic
compositions in Hebrew scripture: the Song of the Sea in Ex 15; the Song of the Well in Num 21:17
18*; the Song of Moses in Deut 32; the Song of Deborah in Judg 5; the Song of David in 2 Sam 22;
and the hymn of the Asaphites in 1 Chr 16. These songs he takes to mark the progress of the Brides
advance in spiritual understanding, culminating in her introduction through marriage into the perfect
mystery of Gods love (Lawson, 4650; cf. Loewe, Apologetic Motifs, 169170).
132 See n. 45 above for textual resources. Regarding issues of the compositions date and provenance,
and for an especially penetrating analysis of its literary structure and thematic content, see Loewe,
Apologetic Motifs,; cf. also the remarks of Pope, 93101 (together with his English translation of the
Aramaic text, included in the Notes to individual verses of the Song). German and French translations of
this Targum are provided respectively in the following studies: Wilhelm Riedel, Die Auslegung des
Hohenliedes in der jdischen Gemeinde und der griechischen Kirche (Leipzig: Deichert, 1898) 941; Paul
Vulliaud, Le Cantique des cantiques daprs la tradition juive (Paris: Universitaires de France, 1925) 67
103.
136 Loewe (Apologetic Motifs, esp. 193195) argues that the Targumists interpretation, which
emphasized practical institutions that flow from the notion of Torah , was intended to repudiate
the Christian expository tradition initiated by Origen and represented especially in Theodorets
commentary, but also the extravagances to which esoteric circles in Jewry were pressing their
determination to read the praise by the maiden of her lovers physical charms as a description of the
mystical body of God.
291 Cf. the assessment of Oswald Loretz, who claims that an allegorical reading of Psalm 45 is already
indicated by textual glosses in vv 7* and 12* (Studien zur althebrischen Poesie 1: Das althebrische
Liebeslied. Untersuchungen zur Stichometrie und Redaktionsgeschichte des Hohenliedes und des 45.
Psalms [AOAT 14/1; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1971]esp. 6970). A
messianic interpretation is given by Raymond Jacques Tournay, Les affinits du Ps. xlv avec le Cantique
des Cantiques et leur interprtation messianique, Congress Volume, Bonn 1962 (VTSup 9; Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1963) 168212.
342 Stanislav Segert (Die Versform des Hohenliedes, Charisteria Orientalia praecipue ad Persiam
pertientia: Ioanni Rypka sacrum [ed. Felix Tauer et al.; Prague: eskoslovensk Akademie, 1956] 285
99) has made use of three metric schemes in his analysis of the Songs poetic rhythms: Wortmetrik, in
which the basic unit of measurement is each accented word of two or more syllables; accentual meter (a
Lubac, Henri de
24(n.100), 25(n.104)
Lys, Daniel
99(n.382), 145, 156, 182, 185(n.3)

modification of the approach to accent-counting developed by E. Sievers and Max Haller), involving
textual emendation and reconstruction of pristine cola; and alternating meter (as proposed especially by
Gustav Hlscher), in which the criterion of measurement is the regular alternation of stressed and
unstressed syllables. Loretz (5556 and passim) settles for indicating basic patterns of symmetry
between cola by giving consonant counts.
345 The assessment of Segal (Song, 479) is puzzling: The parallelism, so characteristic of biblical
poetic literature, is not frequent in the Song. Only occasionally does the rhythmic prose of the Song rise
into parallelistic versification. He apparently counts only twenty-eight genuinely parallelistic cola in the
entire Song. This minimalist approach should be compared with the analysis of Loretz, esp. 5758.
399 See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 8182,
esp. n. 6 and the studies there cited. On the Songs view of sexual love in relationship to covenantal
traditions, see Oswald Loretz, Die theologische Bedeutung des Hohenliedes, BZ N.F. 10 (1966) esp. 39
43.
7 Cf. Loretz (6162), who claims that all references in the Song to king, as well as those to Solomon
per se, are redactional touches, introduced in light of the late attribution of the work to Solomon. The
mention of King Solomon in 3:9*, 11* (cf. 3:7*) does suggest a labored identification, but wholesale
elimination of the term king would require substantial emendation of the text (see, e.g., 1:12*).
11 Cf. Gerleman, 151152; Loretz, 29; and Rudolph, 148149.
1 Rudolph, 153; and Loretz, 34.
14 So Wrthwein, 70; and Loretz, 51.
16 So, respectively, Loretz, 51 (Silberkranz); Wrthwein, 70 (Brautkranz); and Rudolph, 183 (hohen
Brautpreis).
17 Cf. Wrthwein, 70; and Loretz, 51.
21 Loretz, 51; and Wrthwein, 6970.
100 Cf. Henri de Lubac, The Sources of Revelation (tr. Luke ONeill; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968)
50: Gregory is a monk, and his is a monastic exegesis. He popularizes the conception of the Bible as a
mirror of human activity or of the inner man. But above and beyond the tropology which he zealously
cultivates, as a conscientious shepherd of souls, he still searches for the spiritual allegory which will
allow him to unfold the wing of contemplation.
Margolis, Max L.
5(n.13)
Markish, Shimon
34(n.147)
Maspero, Gaston
45(n.209)
May, Herbert G.
96(n.373), 192
Mays, James Luther
120(n.4)
McCarter, P. Kyle
96(n.374)
McNeil, Brian
14(n.59)
Meek, Theophile J.
18(n.70), 3940, 56, 84(n.337), 95(nn.365, 366), 96(nn.369, 371, 372), 167

3 Cf. Pope (620), who, however, adopts punch as his rendering of the hapax mezeg. Lys (255, 260)
translates the term as cocktail!
147 Rrers transcription attributes this view to Erasmus, who apparently revived the interpretation of
Theodore of Mopsuestia (WA 31/2, 589.6). On Erasmuss oblique questioning of the Songs canonical
significance, see the remarks of Shimon Markish, Erasmus and the Jews (tr. Anthony Olcott;
Chicago/London: University of Chicago, 1986) 3840.
209 Text and studies: Gaston Maspero, Les chants damour du papyrus de Turin et du papyrus Harris
no. 500, Journal asiatique 8/1 (1883) 547; White, Study, esp. 18587; Fox, 4451 [translation and
notes], 389393 [hieroglyphic text]. See below: p. 188, n. 14 (no. 30).
373 For influential and representative attempts at such reconstruction, see Herbert G. May, The
Fertility Cult in Hosea, AJSL 48 (193132) 7398; and Hans Walter Wolff, Hosea (tr. Gary Stansell, ed.
Paul D. Hanson; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1316. See the critical remarks and studies
cited by Robert A. Oden, Jr., The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It
(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987) 13153, 18792.
374 See the judicious assessment of the evidence, including the Kuntillet Ajrud epigraphs that refer to
Yahweh and his Asherah, offered by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite
Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross
(ed. Patrick D. Miller, Jr. et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 13755.
365 Meek, 95: In course of time, however, the early connections of the book were forgotten, and it
became so secularized that it appears today as a simple anthology of love poems without any religious
connotation other than its connection with Passover and its inclusion in the canon. For an attempt to
reconstruct the Songs origins in a Spring New Years Festival, associated with Israelite rites of
Passover and Unleavened Bread, see Wilhelm Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum
Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung [Heinz Lefaire], 1926)esp. 18792; cf. also Ringgren, 34.
Melamed, Raphael Hai
11(n.45)
Milik, J. T.
8(n.27), 125
Miller, Athanasius
41(n.185), 85(n.339), 92(n.352), 94, 182, 183, 191
Moor, Johannes C.
55(n.253), 85(n.341)
Mller, W. Max
44(n.205)
Mller, Hans-Peter
7374, 95(n.367)
Murphy, Roland E.
5(nn.12, 13), 11(nn.48, 49), 41(n.185), 46(n.219), 60(nn.275, 276), 65(n.289), 68(n.293), 69(n.298),
76(n.320), 93(n.360), 100(n.388), 101(n.393), 181, 192

366 The problem is admitted by Meek, 96: On separate items the evidence may be slight, but the critics
fail to note that it is cumulative, and the theory does help to solve problems that were previously
insoluble. Cf. Pope, 1718. The most elaborate attempt to reconstruct the Song as a liturgical drama of
hieros gamos remains that of Hartmut Schmkel, Heilige Hochzeit und Hoheslied (Abhandlungen fr die
Kunde des Morgenlandes 32/1; Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft [Franz Steiner],
1956) esp. 4547. Schmkels restructuring of the text is more radical even than restorations suggested
by proponents of the secular drama theory; he posits three original ritual scenes, comprised of the
following rearranged textual segments: (Scene I.) 8:13*; 6:10*, 5a*; 1:56*; 6:1*, 2*, 1112*; 3:12*;
5:7*; 3:4*; 5:26*; 3:3*; 5:8*, 9*, 1016*; 1:7*, 8*; 8:12*; (Scene II.) 4:8*; 8:5a*, 5b7*; 7:710*[6
9*]; 2:10b14*, 17*; 4:911*; 2:16*; 6:4*, 5b9*, 3*; 4:15:7*; 7:11*[10*]; (Scene III.) 3:611*; 7:1
6*[6:137:5*]; 1:914*; 2:13*; 4:125:1*; 2:89*; 7:1214*[1113*]; 2:67*; 1:24*: 3:5*; 2:45*;
8:34*; 1:1617*.
372 Meek, 123; cf. Ringgren, 21.
45 Alexander Sperber, ed., The Bible in Aramaic, Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts, Vol. 4A:
The Hagiographa: Transition from Translation to Midrash (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968) 127141. Cf. also
Raphael Hai Melamed, The Targum to Canticles according to Six Yemen MSS. Compared with the
Textus Receptus (Ed. de Lagarde), JQR N.S. 10 (191920) 377410; N.S. 11 (192021) 120; N.S. 12
(192122) 57117.
205 Text and studies: W. Max Mller, Die Liebespoesie der alten gypter (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1899)
1428 and pls. 215; White, Study, esp. 16977; Fox, 729 [translation and notes], 37082 [hieroglyphic
text].
12 See the discussion in Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles,
Ecclesiastes, and Esther (FOTL 13; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1981) 69, on the setting of
wisdom literature.
Neher, Andr
92(n.354)
Nolli, Gianfranco
170(nn.11, 13), 182
OConnell, Kevin G.
8(n.31)
Oden, Robert A.
96(n.373)
Oesterley, W. O. E.
40(n.182)

49 Portions of the following review were previously published: Roland E. Murphy, Patristic and
Medieval ExegesisHelp or Hindrance? CBQ 43 (1981) 505516.
219 See the list in Murphy, Wisdom Literature, 102. For detailed discussion of the topoi, cf. White,
Study, 91159; and Fox, 18193.
289 See Roland E. Murphy, Cant 2:817*A Unified Poem? Melanges bibliques et orientaux en
lhonneur de M. Mathias Delcor (ed. Andr Caquot et al.; AOAT 215; Kevelaer: Butzon & Bercker;
Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1985) 30510.
293 Cf. Roland E. Murphy, The Hebrew Sage and Openness to the World, Christian Actions and
Openness to the World (ed. Joseph Papin; Villanova: Villanova University, 1970) 21944.
298 Cf. Roland E. Murphy, Wisdom and Eros in Proverbs 19, CBQ 50 (1988) 600603.
388 In this regard, of course, the Song has shared the fortunes of the more traditional books of Israelite
wisdom with which it is most closely associated in the canon. For the contemporary reassessment of
wisdoms significance, applicable at least in part to the Song, see Gerhard von Rads already classic
study, cited in the preceding note, and Roland E. Murphy, The Theological Contributions of Israels
Wisdom Literature, Listening 19 (1984) 3040; and Gerhard von Rads, Religious Dimensions of
Israelite Wisdom, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller,
Jr. et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress) 44958.
354 See above, p. 13, n. 55, and pp. 2833. On the general scope and significance of the marriage
metaphor in biblical traditions, see Andr Neher, Le symbolisme conjugal: expression de lhistoire dans
lAncien Testament, RHPR 34 (1954) 3049.
13 If the tease interpretation is rejected, then the suggestion of Nolli (113115) needs to be
considered. He claims that the words are spoken by the man, and the genre is serenata (serenade). In
this view, the man asks to come in (v 2*) and indicates that he is prepared to spend the night with the
woman, having taken off his tunic and cleansed his feet.
31 On recensional developments in the early history of the Greek transmission, see the following survey
of the recent and extensive critical discussion: Kevin G. OConnell, Greek Versions (Minor), IDBSup,
377381 (with bibliography).
Oettli, Samuel
12(n.50)
Ohly, Friedrich
11(n.48), 12(n.51), 15(n.61), 17(n.67), 23(n.94), 25(n.106)
Olphe-Galliard, M.
21(n.89)
200(n.24)
Pallis, Svend Aage
57(n.262)
Parente, Paschal P.
37(n.163)
Peckman, Brian
96(n.369)
Phipps, William E.
16(n.64)
Pirot, Louis
22(n.92)
Plger, Otto
59(n.268)
Pope, Marvin H.
3(nn.3, 4), 11(nn.47, 48), 14(nn.57, 58), 16, 25(n.109), 28(n.121), 30(n.132), 32(n.138), 40(n.184),
42(n.192), 55(n.251), 72(n.305), 73(n.308), 80(n.327), 85(n.339), 93(n.356), 95(n.366), 97(n.375),

106 PL 162, 11871228 [Enarrationes in Cantica canticorum]. Cf. Ohly, Studien, 112120.
262 Cf. the earlier reconstruction of such nuptial rites by Svend Aage Pallis, The Babylonian Aktu Festival
(Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Historiskfilologiske Meddelelser 12/1; Copenhagen: Bianco
Lunos, 1926) esp. 197200 and 24748.
163 For English translations of these works, with introductory comments, see the following: E. Allison
Peers, tr. and ed., The Complete Works of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Vol. 2 (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946)
352399 *Conceptions of the Love of God+; Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, trs., The Collected
Works of St. John of the Cross (Garden City: Doubleday, 1964) 393565 *The Spiritual Canticle+ and
note also 569649 *The Living Flame of Love+. On the perseverance of this interpretative tradition, cf.
Paschal P. Parente, The Canticle of Canticles in Mystical Theology, CBQ 6 (1944) 142158.
64 Pope, 114. See also William E. Phipps, The Plight of the Song of Songs, JAAR 42 (1974) 8694.
92 PG 66, 699700 [Expositio in Canticum canticorum]. For discussion of Theodores remarks on the
Song and their import in the proceedings of the Second Council of Constantinople, see Louis Pirot,
Loeuvre exgtique de Thodore de Mopsueste, 350428 aprs J.-C. (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici;
Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1913) 131137; and J. M. Vost, Loeuvre exgtique de Thodore de
Mopsueste au II
e
concile de Constantinople, RB 38 (1929) 394395.
3 Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 7c; Garden
City: Doubleday, 1977) 27.
99(n.382), 125, 126, 128, 131, 132, 137(n.20), 139, 140(n.4), 141, 149, 150, 152, 155, 156, 157, 165, 166,
169(n.6), 171(nn.15, 16), 172(nn.19, 22), 173(n.23), 175, 176, 177(nn.1, 2), 178(n.5), 179(n.9), 181, 182,
183, 184, 185(nn.1, 3), 187(n.13), 191, 192, 193, 197(n.9)

4 Pope (2224) offers a relatively detailed review of scholarly positions and arguments regarding the
date of the Song.
47 For pertinent bibliographical information, see especially Pope, 233236, and Robert, 2930.
109 Cf. Pope, 123124.
121 For documentation, see especially Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 337347; and Pope, 112131, 183
210; cf. also Rowley, Interpretation, 201218.
251 This is not to deny, of course, the light that the Ugaritic texts have shed on linguistic aspects of the
Song, nor even the presence of common motifs in the literatures. For such data, see the index of
Ugaritic references in Pope (74243) and also the unpublished study of Keith N. Schoville, The Impact of
the Ras Shamra Texts on the Study of the Song of Songs (Ph.D. dissertation; University of Wisconsin,
1969).
308 Pope, 465: The size of the damsels neck stretches poetic hyperbole a bit as applied to a peasant
lass or any earthly creature. If the lady is divine, her proportions would not be abnormal.
356 Roberts French translation of the Song, together with notes, first appeared in Le Cantique des
Cantiques (La sainte Bible 18; Paris: Cerf, 1951,
2
1953). It is worth noting that there has been a drastic
revision of this treatment in the revised one volume edition, La Bible de Jerusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1974)
94562; according to Pope (17), Roland de Vaux was responsible for this. The tudes bibliques
commentary, with contributions from Tournay and Feuillet, provides the fullest expression of Roberts
position. For other pertinent studies of these authors, see above, n. 187.
20 So Ringgren (in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied, Klagelieder, Das Buck Esther:
bersetzt und erklrt [ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958] 11); cf. Pope (380), who
suggests aphrodisiacs.
4 Pope, 392.
15 Contra Pope, 519; Wrthwein, 58; and others.
16 Cf. Pope, 527.
23 Cf. Pope, 553554.
1 Pope, 558559.
2 Pope, 560563. A particular value of the erudite commentary of Marvin Pope is that he has supplied
the mythological background to Hebrew love poetry. His treatment demonstrates the background of the
sentiments in 4:9* and 6:5*. However, the myth is background only: the intent of the poet is something
Posener, Georges
45(n.210)
Pouget, Guilliaume
58(n.264)
Preus, James Samuel
33(n.142)
Rad, Gerhard von
4, 100(nn.387, 388), 104(n.397)
Ramlot, M. L.
104(n.398)
Reisman, Daniel
51(n.238)
Renan, Ernest

quite different. One can compare the use of the myth of hll ben aar (morning star, son of dawn)
in Isa 14 to describe the fall of the king of Babylon. The intent, or level of meaning, of the poet deals
with the king of Babylon, not the mythical figure. The extent to which the background story has been
demythologized in the Song is very difficult to determine. However, the obvious emphasis on the
attraction and love which the man and the woman feel for each other in the Song suggest that the myth
has been considerably tamed.
9 For possible mythological associations of the nut, and also the fertility background to the b (fresh
growth) and the naal (valley), see Pope, 574583.
1 See the Introduction, pp. 39 and 59. Cf. also the discussion in Pope, 604.
9 Pope, 667.
210 Text and studies: Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Eine neue Sammlung von Liebesliedern, Aegyptiaca:
Festschrift Georg Ebers (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1897) 11721; Georges Posener, Catalogue des
ostraca hiratiques littraires de Deir el Mdineh, Vol. 2/3 (Fouilles de linstitut franais darchologie
orientale 18; Cairo: Linstitut franais darchologie orientale, 1972) 4344 and pls. 7579a; White,
Study, esp. 18789; Fox, 2944 [translation and notes], 38389 [hieroglyphic text].
142 See especially George L. Scheper, Reformation Attitudes towards Allegory and the Song of Songs,
PMLA 89 (1974) 551562; and also Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 337347. On Lathers indebtedness to
medieval traditions of exegesis, see James Samuel Preus, From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament
Interpretation from Augustine to the Young Luther (Cambridge: Harvard University [Belknap], 1969).
397 On this, see esp. the seminal remarks of Gerhard von Rad, Some Aspects of the Old Testament
World-View, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (tr. E. W. Trueman Dicken;
Edinburgh/London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965) 14465.
398 For this reading of the construction, which is at least defensible, see the comments in the pertinent
sections of Notes and Interpretation below, pp. 19192 and 197. Cf. also M. L. Ramlot, Le Cantique des
cantiques: une flamme de Yahve, RThom 64 (1964) 23959.
42(n.191)
Renger, Johannes
48(n.228)
Reuss, Eduard
39(n.174), 58(n.264)
Ricciotti, Guiseppe
37(n.167), 40(n.181), 41(n.186), 85(n.339), 176, 182, 183
Riedel, Wilhelm
12(n.51)
Riedlinger, Helmut
21(n.89), 24(n.103)
Ringgren, Helmer
40(n.183), 95(n.365), 137(n.20), 167, 168(n.2), 181, 182, 191
Robert, Andr
11(n.47), 12(n.51), 37(n.165), 41(n.187), 65(n.288), 66(n.290), 84(n.338), 86(n.341), 93, 132, 134(n.3),
155, 157, 161(n.16), 162(n.17), 165, 166, 181, 182, 183, 184, 191, 192, 193, 195(n.1), 196(n.6)

191 See above, n. 177; and also Ernest Renan, Le Cantique des Cantiques, traduit de lhbreu avec une
tude sur le plan, lge et le caractre du pome (Paris, 1860) 86.
228 Cf. Johannes Renger, Heilige Hochzeit, Reallexikon der Assyriologie, Band 2 (ed. Dietz Otto Edzard
et al.; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 197275) 25159, esp. 25758.
103 Cf. Helmut Riedlinger, Die Makellosigkeit der Kirche in den lateinischen Hoheliedkommentaren des
Mittelalters (Beitrge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters. Texte und
Untersuchungen 38/3; Mnster: Aschendorf, 1958) 400403.
183 Meek, esp. 9498; Hartmut Schmkel, Die kultischen Deutung des Hoheliedes, ZAW 64 (1956)
148155; and Helmer Ringgren, Das Hohe Lied in Helmer Ringgren and Artur Weiser, Das Hohe Lied,
Klagelieder, Das Buch Esther: bersetzt und erklrt (ATD 16/2; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1958) 137. Cf. also Helmer Ringgren, Hohes Lied und hieros Gamos, ZAW 65 (1953) 300302; and,
recently, The Marriage Motif in Israelite Religion, Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank
Moore Cross (ed. Patrick D. Miller, et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 421428.
2 Cf. Ringgren, 26; and Wrthwein, 59.
165 Cornelius Lapide, Commentarii in Scripturam Sacram, Vol. 4 (Antwerp. 1657; Lyon/Paris, 1875)
357750 [In Canticum Canticorum]. On the character and significance of this work, see the remarks in
Robert, 4647.
288 Cf. Robert (308), who aptly termed these verses appendices.
290 Cf. Robert, 308; his characterization of 8:814* is also applicable to 8:57*.
16 Bibliography relevant to the plants and perfumes is given in Robert, 444; see also Michael Zohary,
Flora, IDB 2 (E-J), 284302.
17 Robert, 187188.
Robertson, Noel
97(n.375)
Rosenmller, Ernst Friedrich Carl
33(n.141)
Rowley, Harold H.
11(n.48), 12(n.51), 28(n.121), 32(n.140), 33(n.141), 40(n.181), 121(n.10), 181
Rudolph, Wilhelm
5(n.13), 43(n.196), 73(n.312), 85(n.339), 86(n.343), 97(n.377), 100(n.391), 136, 137(nn.19, 22), 139,
140, 141, 145, 159(nn.8, 11), 166, 168(nn.1, 3), 172(n.21), 175, 176, 181, 184, 186(n.7), 188, 192,
198(n.15), 199(n.18)
Sadgrove, M.
99(n.386)
Salfeld, Siegmund
32(n.137)
Salvaneschi, Erica
71(n.304)

1 Robert (308) characterized 8:814* as appendices; the label can just as easily apply to 8:57*.
6 Contra Robert, 298299.
10 Cf. Harold H. Rowley, The Meaning of the Shulammite, AJSL 56 (1939) 8491.
196 Gerleman, 5253, who contrasts his own position to the view more recently supported by Wilhelm
Rudolph: Das Hohe Lied im Kanon, ZAW 59 (194243) 18999; cf. Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth,
Das Hohe Lied, Die Klagelieder (KAT 17/13; Gtersloh: Gtersloher Verlagshaus [Gerd Mohn], 1962)
esp. 107108.
312 So, e.g., Rudolph, 173.
377 Contra Rudolph, 105106.
19 So, e.g., Wrthwein, 44; and Rudolph, 131.
22 Rudolph, 131.
18 Rudolph, 183.
386 Audet, Le sens, 21617. On the connections of these lines with sapiential thought, see also:
Nicolas J. Tromp, Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8, 6c7b: text, character, message and import, Le
Sagesse de lAncien Testament (ed. Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979) 8895; and M.
Sadgrove, The Song of Songs as Wisdom Literature, Studia Biblica 1978, I: Papers on the Old Testament
and Related Themes (ed. E. A. Livingstone; JSOTSup 11; Sheffield: JSOT, 1979) 24548. See below, p. 197.
137 For discussion of these and other medieval Jewish expositors, see especially Siegmund Salfeld, Das
Hohelied Salomos bei den jdischen Erklrern des Mittelalters (Berlin: Benzian, 1879); he lists (173177)
over a hundred such commentators between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries.
Sasson, Jack M.
56(n.254), 102(n.395)
Scheper, George L.
22(nn.89, 90), 28(n.121), 33(nn.141, 142)
Schmidt, Nathaniel
40(n.181)
Schmkel, Hartmut
40(n.183), 95(n.366)
Schlem, Gershom
14(n.58)
Schott, Siegfried
44(nn.199, 202)

304 Cf. Morris *Moshe+ Hirsch Segal, The Song of Songs, VT 12 (1962) 480: *The Song+ abounds in
playfulness, in gentle raillery and fun, mingled with touching sentiments of love and tenderness.
Recently, Enrica Salvaneschi (Cantico dei Cantici: Interpretatio ludica [Genova: Melangolo, 1982]) has
moved beyond literal analysis of the Songs metaphorical terminology in an effort to identify the
metalanguage of the poetry; she subjects several terms to a playful analysis (interpretatio ludica)
within the biblical range of meanings.
254 For recitation of myth in connection with a magical charm, see the Egyptian text translated by John
A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 14 (The God and His Unknown Name of Power, 1214). The cryptic Old Akkadian
text discussed by Jack M. Sasson may have some import in this regard, but its possible connection with
the biblical Song seems remote at best (A Further Cuneiform Parallel to the Song of Songs? ZAW 85
[1973] 35960).
90 Scheper, Spiritual Marriage, 404452, provides an excellent treatment, especially of the views of
Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine.
199 Alfred Hermann, Altgyptische Liebesdichtung (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1959) esp. 48; the
texts numbered 4855 in Hermanns scheme are fragmentary and supplemental. A full, consecutive
English translation of the units numbered 147 is conveniently provided by William Kelly Simpson (ed.),
The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry (New Haven/London:
Yale University, 1972) 296325 *The Love Songs and The Song of the Harper, tr. William Kelly
Simpson]. Selections from the major sources are translated by John A. Wilson, ANET
3
, 46769; and
(Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 1976) 18193. Still valuable are the translations,
notes, and discussion of Siegfried Schott, Altgyptische Liebeslieder (Zrich: Artemis, 1950) = Les chants
damour de lgypte ancienne (tr. Paul Krieger; Lorient ancien illustr; Paris: A. Maisonneuve, 1956).
202 So rendered by Simpson, Literature, 315. Cf., however, Fox (52, 5556), who follows Siegfried Schott
in understanding the end of the rubric to attribute the songs or sayings in question to the Great
Entertainer (a feminine participle), perhaps the epithet of a prominent Egyptian poetess and distant
predecessor of Sappho. For translated excerpts from this cycle, see below: pp. 17879, n. 7 (no. 31); pp.
18889, n. 15 (no. 38); and pp. 13637, n. 18 (no. 37).
Schoville, Keith N.
55(n.251)
Segal, Benjamin J.
102(n.395)
Segal, Morris (Moshe) Hirsch
71(n.304), 74(n.316), 79(n.323), 87(n.345)
Segert, Stanislav
86(n.342)
Sendrey, Alfred
59(n.269)
Shashar, M.
42(n.192)
Shea, William H.
63
Siegfried, Carl
39(n.177)
Skehan, Patrick W.
8(n.25)
Slomovic, Elieser
121(n.6)
Smalley, Beryl
12(n.51), 22(n.91), 23, 25(n.105)
Snaith, Norman H.
79(n.323)
Soden, Wolfram von

316 Segal, Song, 478 and 48485; and also Wagner, Aramaismen, 11011.
323 See further Norman H. Snaith, The Song of Songs: The Dances of the Virgins, AJSL 50 (193334)
12942, for a discussion of the poetic language appropriate to the Autumn and Spring passages which
he identifies in the Song. His observations about the language and imagery are more important than the
hypothesis concerning the origins of the poems Cf. also Segal, Song, 48588.
177 Karl Budde, Was ist das Hohelied? Preussische Jahrbcher 78 (1894) 92117; and Das Hohelied
erklrt in Karl Budde, Alfred Bertholet, and D. G. Wildeboer, Die fnf Megillot (KHC 6;
Freiburg/Leipzig/Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1898) IX48. Cf. also Carl Siegfried, Hoheslied
in Wilhelm Frankenberg and Carl Siegfried, Die Sprche, Prediger und Hoheslied bersetzt und erklrt
(HR 2/3; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1898) 78126.
25 Patrick W. Skehan, Littrature de Qumran.A. Textes bibliques, DBSup 9/51, 806.
6 See Brevard S. Childs, Psalm Titles and Midrashic Exegesis, JSS 16 (1971) 137150; and also Elieser
Slomovic, Toward an Understanding of the Formation of Historical Titles in the Book of Psalms, ZAW
91 (1979) 350380.
105 For discussion, see Jean Leclercq, From Gregory to Saint Bernard, CHB 2, 183197, especially 189
193; and the full treatment in Smalley, Study, 37263.
56(n.256)
Soulen, Richard N.
71(n.303), 158(n.5)
Spiegelberg, Wilhelm
45(n.210)
Steinmetz, David
103(n.396)
Stephan, Stephen H.
42(n.192)
Swete, Henry Barclay
7(n.21), 8(n.29)
Sznycer, Maurice
55(n.252)
Thomas, David Winton
192
4(n.10), 41(n.187), 42(n.192), 67(n.291), 93, 140, 165, 176, 192, 198(n.11)
Trever, John
187(n.10)
Trible, Phyllis
70(n.301), 102(n.394), 187(n.11)
Tromp, Nic[h]olas J.
70(n.299), 99(n.386), 191, 197(n.11)

256 Wolfram vod Soden, Ein Zwiegesprch Hammurabis mit einer Frau, Zeitschrift fr Assyriologie 49
(1950) 15194.
29 Alfred Rahlfs, ed., Septuaginta. Id est Vetus Testamentum Graece iuxta LXX interpretes, Vol. 2: Libri
poetici et prophetici (Stuttgart: Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935 [and subsequent reprint editions]).
For the Song, as generally elsewhere, Rahlfs eclectic text of G is based primarily on collation and critical
evaluation of readings in the three major fourth-fifth century uncial manuscripts Vaticanus (G
B
),
Sinaiticus (G
S
) and Alexandrinus (G
A
). Still useful is the Shorter Cambridge Septuagint (Henry Barclay
Swete, ed., The Old Testament in Greek according to the Septuagint, Vol. 2: I Chronicles-Tobit
[Cambridge: University Press,
2
1896]: the G text of the Song is represented by Vaticanus while the
apparatus lists variants attested in Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus
Parisiensis (= G
C
, a fifth-century uncial, only partially intact).
11 In light of the contrast between Genesis and the Song, Phyllis Tribie (God and the Rhetoric of
Sexuality [OBT 2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978] 160) comments on Cant 7:11*: In Eden, the yearning of
the woman for harmony with her man continued after disobedience. Yet the man did not reciprocate;
instead, he ruled over her to destroy unity and pervert sexuality. Her desire became his dominion. But in
the Song, male power vanishes. His desire becomes her delight. Another consequence of disobedience is
thus redeemed through the recovery of mutuality in the garden of eroticism. Appropriately, the woman
sings the lyrics of this grace: I am my lovers and for me is his desire.
299 Cf. Nicolas J. Tromp, Wisdom and the Canticle. Ct 8, 6c7b: text, character, message and import,
La Sagesse de lAncien Testament (ed. Maurice Gilbert; BETL 51; Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1979) 94.
Twersky, Isadore
32(n.139)
Urbach, Ephraim E.
6(n.16), 13(n.53), 17(n.67), 20(n.84)
Vaccari, Alberto
11(n.48), 38(n.172), 94(n.361), 166
Vajda, Georges
32(nn.139, 140), 33(n.141)
Vaux, Roland de
8(n.27), 60(n.274), 98(n.379), 125, 175, 178(n.4)
Vermes, Geza
92(n.353)
Vogels, Walter
103(n.396)
Vogt, Ernst
182
Vost.J. M.
22(n.92)
Wagner, Max
4(n.10), 74(n.316), 139, 176, 182
Waterman, Leroy
38(n.172)
Watson, Wilfred G. E.
85(n.341), 87(n.347)

139 Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, Vol. 2 (tr. Shlomo Pines; Chicago and London:
University of Chicago,
3
1974) 61836 [3.5154]. See also Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of
Maimonides (Misneh Torah) (Yale Judaica Series 22; New Haven and London: Yale University, 1980) 145;
and Georges Vajda, Lamour de Dieu dans la thologie juive du Moyen Age (tudes de philosophic
mdivale 46; Paris: Librairie philosophique [J. Vrin], 1957) 11840.
84 Lawson, 22. Origen also refers here to a tradition among the Jews to allow no one even to hold
this book in his hands, who has not reached a full and ripe age (Lawson, 23). Cf. Urbach, Homiletical
Interpretations, 252 and n. 14.
4 Cf. Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (tr. John McHugh; New
York/Toronto/London: McGraw-Hill, 1961) 117, where it is noted that Cant 6:8* is the only place in the
Old Testament that uses the term queen (malk; plural mlkt) to refer to Israelite or Judaean royal
consort(s).
353 Cf. Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Studia Post-Biblica 4; Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1973) 3739.
347 It seems gratuitous to consider the familiar Hebrew idiom answer and said to represent a
parallelistic bicolon, contra Wilfred G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques
(JSOTSup 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1984) 368, though his analysis of the poem Love in Spring (2:1013*) is
generally instructive.
Weinfeld, Moshe
104(n.399)
Weiser, Artur
40(n.183)
Wellhausen, Julius
85(n.339)
Wetzstein, J. G.
39, 59(n.272)
White, John Bradley
42(n.193), 44(n.205), 45(nn.209, 210, 214, 215), 46(n.219), 47(n.222)
Wiles, Maurice F.
22(n.91)
Williams, Ronald J.
43(n.198), 74(n.318)
Winandy, Jacques
14(n.59), 92(n.355), 99(n.383)
Winckler, Hugo
85(n.339)
Wittekindt, Wilhelm
40(n.182), 48(n.227)
Wolff, Hans Walter
96(n.373)
Wolfson, Henry Austryn
12(n.51), 13, 20(n.82)
Wrthwein, Ernst
11(n.48), 59, 99(n.383), 127, 135, 137(n.19), 145, 146, 158(n.1), 159(n.8), 162(n.18), 168(nn.2, 3),
171(n.15), 182, 184, 195(n.2), 198(nn.14, 17), 199(n.21)

193 Adolf Erman, The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians (tr. Aylward M. Blackman; London: Methuen,
1927 [= Die Literatur der Aegypter (Leipzig, 1923)]; reprinted as The Ancient Egyptians: A Sourcebook of
their Writings [New York: Harper & Row, 1966]) 24243. On other contributors to the early discussion,
see John Bradley White, A Study of the Language of Love in the Song of Songs and Ancient Egyptian
Poetry (SBLDS 38; Missoula: Scholars, 1978) 6768.
198 For a general review of the evidence, see Ronald J. Williams, gypten und Israel, Theologische
Realenzyklopdie, Band 1/4 (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977) 492505; and cf. Fox (19193)
for specific comments on possible channels of transmission.
383 Audet, Le sens, 20211, 21621; and Audet, Love, 7983. Audets position is developed in the
commentary of Jacques Winandy (with the sub-title suggesting his perspective): Le Cantique des
Cantiques: Pome damour mu en crit de sagesse (Bible et vie chrtienne; Tournai: Castermann
[Maredsous], 1960). Cf. Wrthwein, 34.
227 As elaborately argued, e.g., by Wilhelm Wittekindt, Das Hohe Lied und seine Beziehungen zum
Itarkult (Hannover: Orient-Buchhandlung [Heinz Lefaire], 1926); and Hartmut Schmkel, Heilige
Hochzeit und Hoheslied (Abhandlungen fr die Kunde des Morgenlandes; Wiesbaden: Deutsche
Morgenlndische Gesellschaft [Franz Steiner], 1956).
Yamauchi, Edwin M.
40(n.181)
Zapletal, Vincenz
94(n.363)
Zckler, Otto
38(n.172)
Zohary, Michael
161(n.16)
Zolli, Eugenio
132, 183
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