Intro: The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's (1:1)

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1) Who wrote it?

A)   1:1

1) There are other options, but…

2) Solomon as the author is the most natural reading of this text.

3) And it is the most held view throughout history.

B) Solomon is associated with Bible wisdom literature.

1) Wisdom literature

(a)   There are a few psalms called wisdom psalms (1, 19, 37, 73, 119)

(b)   Job – Questions about suffering

(c)   Proverbs – Wisdom for life

(d)   Ecclesiastes – The limits of human wisdom

(e)   Song of Songs

2) Solomon and wisdom

(a)   1 Kgs. 3:5ff., 9-12 – God gave Solomon wisdom

(b)   3:16 – Solomon’s wisdom in action (v. 28)

(c)   4:20-25 – Solomon fulfilled God’s promise to have the land, and he was very wealthy

(d)   4:29-34 – God gave him wisdom

C) There is a big problem with Solomon as the author: 1 Kgs. 11:1-8

1) v. 3 – 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines

2) IMPORTANT: Almost everything in the next section exist because we are trying to deal with Solomon’s behavior. How does his behavior work with his writing this book? (This is one big reason who so many people argue that he did not write the book.)

2) How do we read it?

   NOTE: There are just about as many ways of reading SOS as there are interpreters.

A)   Traditional explanation (Jewish tradition): Two character view.

1) SOS was written after Solomon’s first marriage when he was young and in love. I don’t think so.

2) We do know something about Solomon’s early wives.

(a)   Naamah the Ammonite was likely his first wife

(i) 1 Kgs. 14:21 – Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign…”

(ii)  cf. 1 Kgs. 11:42 – Solomon reigned over Israel for 40 years.

(b)   1 Kgs. 3:1 – Marriage alliance with Pharaoh’s daughter

(i) 7:8; 9:24 – He built a dedicated, separate palace for her.

(ii)  9:16 – Her dowry was the conquered city of Gezer, given to Solomon by Pharaoh.

3) Here are some reasons why I think Solomon is not the man in the poem:

(a)   SOS 1:5-7 describes a woman who was forced by her brothers to work in the vineyards, and she had a flock that she needed to pasture.

(b)   Also, SOS moves through the growth of a relationship. It starts with young, springtime love, and ends with deep love that has been tried and endured. Solomon never experienced this.

4) Be careful about the headings in your Bible in this book.

(a)   e.g. 1:8. I do think Solomon wrote this, but I do not agree with these headings

(i) ESV – Solomon and His Bride Delight in Each Other

(ii)  NAS95 – Solomon, the Lover, Speaks

(b)   Better

(i) NKJV – The Beloved

(ii)  NET – The Love to His Beloved

(iii)          *NIV11 – He / She. NIV84 – Lover / Beloved.

B) Figurative view / Allegorical View

1) SOS is not literally about human love and marriage but is a spiritual metaphor for God’s love for his people.

(a)   Jews: God and Israel

(b)   Christians: Christ and the church

2) Ridiculous examples

(a)   4:5 – The woman’s two breasts:

(i) Hippolytus, Cyril of Alexandria: The Old and New Covenants.

(ii)  1:12 – Cyril of Alexandria: Jesus is the sachet of myrrh hanging between the Old and New Covenants.

(iii)          Gregory of Nyssa: The outer and inner man (i.e. the body and soul).

(iv) Jewish allegory: Moses and Aaron sustaining Israel, or the King and High Priest.

(b)   2:9 – Martin Luther: The stag leaping over the mountains is the Word of God leaping from city to city.

(c)   5:3 – Augustine: Christian ministers who would rather rest in heaven with Christ, but they are forced to serve in this sinful world.

C) Three-character views. “The Shepherd Hypothesis”

1) Song of Songs is a love triangle between three characters. There is a humble country girl (the Shulammite), and her shepherd man, but Solomon either forcibly takes her or woos her with his wealth and status into his Jerusalem harem. But she resists and remains faithful to her trust shepherd love. This is a David vs. Goliath story, and Somon is Goliath.

2) Problems

(a)   The biggest problem is that this view involves splitting the text into different “actors” or speakers with no clear reason for doing so. This is why there are so many different approaches to this view. Sometimes in the sections where the male is speaking, interpreters will arbitrarily split the section between the shepherd and  Solomon with no clear reason for doing this.

(b)   This view relies on extremely complex dream sections, and inner speeches (talking to oneself), again, with no reason for thinking this is the case other than this is what you have to do to make the shepherd hypothesis work. We don’t move the text around to fit our hypothesis. We form our hypothesis based upon the text.

(c)   Moral problems. Is it ok for the woman to be a part of Solomon’s harem and yet longing for another man?

(d)   There are no other ancient near easter precedents for a three-character love triangle. This is a completely unique thing in all of history up to this point.

D)   Collection of separate poems (The Lyric Anthology).

1) Summary: The Song of Songs is not one continuous love story/poem, but rather an collection of individual, completely independent poems grouped together by common themes.

E) How I will teach this class: Douglas O’Donnell’s view makes the most sense to me.[1]

1) Solomon is the author.

2) He wrote it when he was old with a contrite heart and regret.

3) Solomon himself is the foil (the negative contrast of what is good and right).

(a)   There is a three-character view of SOS where Solomon is a competing character. I don’t think so.

(b)   He is a foil, like Draco Malfoy is to Harry Potter. He’s not necessarily the bad guy. He’s the opposite of the good guy.

4) NOTE: It’s extremely powerful to teach from a place of sharing your mistakes and regrets.

5) Summary: “I also side with the medieval Jewish scholar Rashi that Solomon wrote this Song not in his youth but in his old age and that he did so as an act of contrition. In other words, in view of his idolatrous, polygamous relationships that led his heart away from the Lord (1 Kings 1–11) and away from sexual purity and marital intimacy (it’s hard to be truly intimate with 700 wives), he sets himself up as the foil in this Song... and thus he writes this greatest of his songs in a distant ‘self-deprecating tone’ to say to his first readers and to us, ‘Listen, on this matter of marriage, do as I say, not as I did.’”[2]

6) KEY: 8:11-12

(a)   Baal-hamon

(i) Baal = lord, master, husband

(ii)  Haman = multitude, crowd, mob

(b)   Solomon has the 1000, but the woman has her very own.

(c)   Solomon let out his vineyard to keepers for money. He treated his love and intimacy like a commercial farming operation. He was surrounded by 1000 women and he was alone. He had everything in the world except the one thing that matters the most.

(d)   Solomon has volume. The man and woman in this poem have depth (e.g. 8:6-7).

3) This is the Song of Songs. (I’m going to retrain myself to call it this because even though Solomon write it, I think this is a more fitting title.)

A)   The Hebrew superlative is where you connect a singular noun to its own plural. This is how you express the highest degree of something. The best.

1) cf. The holy place vs the Holy of Holies (i.e. The Most Holy Place)

2) Ecclesiastes: Vanity of vanities – This is the height of meaningless despair.

3) The King of kings. 

B) The Song of Songs

1) 1 Kgs. 4:32 – Solomon spoke 3000 proverbs, and his songs were 1005.

2) Out of every song composed, this is the best.

3) It’s strange that this can be the best of all songs when…

(a)   God isn’t even mentioned (except for 8:6)

(b)   There is no law, temple, rituals, sacrifices, etc.

(c)   It’s like a song from the radio getting printed in a hymnal.

C) I wonder if this being the best song applies to other Bible songs?

1) The Song of Moses – After the Exodus (Ex. 15:1-18)

2) The Song of Deborah and Barak (Judges 5:1-31)

3) The Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2:1-10)

4) The Song of David (2 Sam. 22:1-51; 23:1-7)

5) The Song of Hezekiah (Is. 38:10-20)

6) The Song of Mary (Lk. 1:46-55)

7) The Song of Zechariah (Lk. 1:68-79)

4) Why is this book in the Bible?

A)   It isn’t just art for art’s sake. It is designed to teach us how to live and love.

B) 8:6-7 – Our love is “the very flame of the Lord”

1) 1 Jn. 4:16 – “We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

2) If our love is God’s love, then SOS is a theological statement about the goodness of God and what he made and how we should live this out.

3) Marital love is not a distraction from God and our spiritual lives. It is direct participation in it. It is a sacred reflection.

C) Song of Songs guards against two extremes:

1) Hedonism

(a)   This is what Solomon did. Sex is an appetite and women are commodities, so just do whatever you want with whomever you want.

(b)   There are instructions throughout SOS to the unmarried to not stir up this passion and light the fire until you have a fireplace to put it into.

2) Stoicism

(a)   The historic church. Sex is dirty, unspiritual, and bad and only for practically making babies.

(b)   Marriage is not where passion goes to die. It’s where Godly passion grows into something beyond description.

(c)   SOS is going to teach us how to rekindle this.

[1] O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. The Song of Solomon: An Invitation to Intimacy. Preaching the Word. Edited by R. Kent Hughes. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012.

[2] O’Donnell.