Catching Fog

Once again, take warning all who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O prince’s daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
the work of a craftsman’s hands.
Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
encircled by lilies.
Your breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.
Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking toward Damascus.
Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
Your hair is like royal tapestry;
the king is held captive by its tresses.
How beautiful you are
and how pleasing,
O love, with your delights!
Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
I said, “I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit.”
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,

the fragrance of your breath like apples,
and your mouth like the best wine.

May the wine go straight to my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth. (7:1-9)

The bulk of this segment of the erotic poem that is the Song of Songs details the delights of the beloved woman’s body: her legs come into view here. Her breasts are described as a cluster of fruit, and she is described as being like a palm tree. Immediately after that, the man says that he will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit. So that should certainly clear enough, even to the densest of readers, one would think.

There are some Near Eastern-centric statements that seem odd to us: descriptions that just don’t do much for the average 21st century Americans. For instance, the description of her nose as being like the tower of Lebanon just sounds very funny. Funny, of course, was not the intent of the poem’s author. But ideals of beauty, and the ways of describing such beauty, undergo shifts from place to place, people to people, times to times.

Not that sex and humor are mutually exclusive things. Sex is fun, and the concept of joking about it is certainly common throughout human history–and laughter is often a common language between lovers. But here, in this particular section of the poem, laughter would break the mood.

The woman responds at the end, following the description of her mouth being like the best wine. She responds that she wants it to flow right into his mouth, gently “over teeth and gums.” I doubt that the French really invented what we call the French kiss.

I belong to my lover,
and his desire is for me.

Come, my lover,
let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages.
Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom–
there I will give you my love.
The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my lover. (7:10-13)

The woman announces at the start of this segment her confidence in the relationship. It perhaps illustrates something mentioned in the New Testament, that perfect love drives out fear; and of course in 1 Corinthians 13, the nature of love is that it always hopes. So, her statement illustrates how strong her love really is.

Moving on, the man turns his attention to talking about them making love: vines, vineyards, countryside–he is expressing his interest in spending time with her body. As regards the mandrakes: they were considered an aphrodisiac, on the principle that if a plant looks like the thing that you’re having trouble with, then it will help that body part. So, think of mandrakes as a kind of ancient version of Viagra; certainly, given the importance of psychology and mood in something like sex, just the thought that it would help probably did make it help in a lot of cases.

As an example of the aphrodisiac use of mandrakes in the Bible, consider this story from Genesis 30:14-16, which is the only other place in the Bible that mandrakes are mentioned:

During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah.
Rachel said to Leah, “Please give me some of your son’s mandrakes.”
But she said to her, “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?”
“Very well,” Rachel said, “he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s mandrakes.”
So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.” So he slept with her that night.

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Once again, take warning all who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

Where has your lover gone,
most beautiful of women?
Which way did your lover turn,
that we may look for him with you?

My lover has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
and to gather lilies.
I am my lover’s
and my lover is mine;
he browses among the lilies. (6:1-3)

Following on from chapter five, the question comes from the daughters of Jerusalem, asking where he has gone — given his “disappearance”, i.e., he had spent himself and needed to recharge as it were. In the verses that follow, we find him getting excited again. Where has he gone? Back to enjoying himself with the delights of her body. She is his garden, the place where he spends his time and energy. Back in chapter 2:1 she calls herself a “lily of the valleys” and he agrees in verse 2 that she is like a “lily among thorns”. Then in 4:5 he says of her that “Your two breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.”

And, of course in chapter 4:12-14, she is described this way:

You are a garden locked up,
my sister, my bride;
you are a spring enclosed,
a sealed fountain.
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.

So the spice thing has been mentioned before. And then right after, in vs. 16 she tells him “Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.”

Once again, these two lovers are enjoying the fruits of one another. The poetry is not complicated or difficult to understand. One simply must pay a little attention and let his or her mind wander in the direction that the imagery is trying to take it. The poet is skilled at creating images, making use of all our senses. Sex is something that, ideally, should engage everything in us, tantalize and please all five of our senses, and our entire selves, swallowing us up. As she says at last: “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine.” They are entirely obsessed and consumed by each other, completely and wholly one.

You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners.
Turn your eyes from me;
they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin,
not one of them is alone.
Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.
Sixty queens there may be,
and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number;
but my dove,
my perfect one,
is unique,
the only daughter of her mother,
the favorite of the one who bore her.
The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her.
Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession? (6:4-10)

I’m guessing here, and maybe you can enlighten me on this, but I think that women enjoy it if the man they are enamored of tells them that they are beautiful, that they are special, that they are unlike any other woman that has ever been in his life. And so the man, here, tells the woman, his beloved, that she is lovely; the images he uses are agricultural, and sheep and other domesticated animals seem to predominate as images; for us, we may not find the descriptions as aluring as the audience to whom this poem was originally written. I susepct most women would not want various parts of their anatomy to be compared with sheep. But lets not lose sight of the point: he loves her, and everything about her attracts him. I think I mentione before, that in a man who has grown past adolescence, a woman is not just a collection of body parts. Rather, the mature man finds his beloved’s legs, boobs, or whatever he likes wonderful because they are part of his beloved, not as objects in themselves. The man here describes how wonderful her teeth are, for instance, not necessarily because objectively they are the best teeth that ever existed, but because they are the teeth of the woman he loves, whom he is obsessed with. He no longer views them objectively; he cannot. He loves her, and thus there is no part of her physically that does not turn him on; he cannot help but find every part attractive, wonderful, and erotic, because they are part of his beloved, whom he loves in her entirety.

I went down to the grove of nut trees
to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom.
Before I realized it,
my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.

Come back,
come back,
O Shulammite;
come back,
come back,
that we may gaze on you!

Why would you gaze on the Shulammite
as on the dance of Mahanaim?(6:11-13)

The man is speaking again; he describes his pleasure being in his garden. According to 6:7, which we saw last night, her temples are the halves of pomegranates; 2:13 told us, “the blossoming vines spread their fragrance…” in reference to the woman; in 2:1 she is described as a lily of the valley, and we have discussion in 2:14 we are told, “my dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside…” so the imagery that we’ve seen before in reference to the woman, who is called a Shulammite, is consistently applied. And 1:9 tells us “I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.” Additionally we have the image of 3:7–“It is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by sixty warriors, the noblest of Israel…”

So, once again, he and she are together; the NLT explains that the royal chariots of my people means: “Before I realized it, I found myself in my princely bed with my beloved one.”

The dance of Mahanaim means “between two lines of dancers” or possible “a camp dance.” In either case, the sense is a provocative sort of dance, think “I dream of Jeannie” but with a few less clothes, perhaps. And the intent, of course, is to entice. So the answer to the question as to why gaze at her as upon that sort of dance is sort of obvious. And that is the point, no doubt.

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Once again, take warning all who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice.
I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk.

Eat, O friends, and drink;
drink your fill, O lovers. (5:1)

In the previous section, the man described his beloved as a a garden. Her love was described as better than wine in 4:10, honey was under her tongue in 4:11, her perfume was compared to spice in 4:10, myrr is associated with her in 4:6 and 14; milk is also under her tongue in 4:11. So, one would gather that there is some heavy physical contact going on here. Furthermore, it ends with the couplet encouraging them to eat and drink, the idea obviously being to satisfy themselves fully with one another.

I slept but my heart was awake.
Listen!
My lover is knocking:
“Open to me, my sister,
my darling,
my dove,
my flawless one.
My head is drenched with dew,
my hair with the dampness of the night.”

I have taken off my robe–
must I put it on again?
I have washed my feet–
must I soil them again?

My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him.
I arose to open for my lover,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with flowing myrrh,
on the handles of the lock.
I opened for my lover,
but my lover had left;
he was gone.
My heart sank at his departure.
I looked for him but did not find him.
I called him but he did not answer.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city.
They beat me,
they bruised me;
they took away my cloak,
those watchmen of the walls!

O daughters of Jerusalem,
I charge you– if you find my lover,
what will you tell him?
Tell him I am faint with love. (5:2-8)

This section is pretty obvious, though I find it remarkable how many commentators, even those who supposedly don’t allegorize the thing as a poem expressing the love of Christ for the church, miss or ignore what’s actually going on here.

Obviously, following from verse one of chapter four, where the man announces that he has come into the garden — that is, that he and she are making love — what follows is standard Hebrew expansion, going into rather intimate detail about the process. It begins with her awakening and finding her lover roused and ready to go. He lets her know that he is more than ready; perhaps he has ejaculated once already, hence the dew on his head and the dampness of the night. She seems, following that, to have already felt like she had taken care of things, complaining of taking off her robe and having washed her feet. The word “feet” in certain contexts refers to the genitals; perhaps that is the case here.

Then, her lover begins manual manipulation of the clitoris, rousing her; she begins lubricating and opens to him — and then all at once, just as she’s getting ready, he’s already done and gone. So she experiences some frustration, calling, but he’s limp, and so nothing more is going to happen any time soon. What follows then is the image of the watchman: finding her, stripping her, beating her. She didn’t get what she had been anticipating and what she needed from her lover.

Alternatively, while the watchmen segment might reference a bit of S&M, I think that’s unlikely. Instead, it most probably it’s simply expressing her disappointment that he was a bit too quick. Still, despite all that, her ardor is not lessened, and she thinks no less of him. She is still desperately in love and wants him more than anything. And of course that becomes clear with the verses that follow, where she describes his physical attributes, explaining to those who might wonder, what makes her man so special to her.

How is your beloved better than others, most beautiful of women?
How is your beloved better than others, that you charge us so?

My lover is radiant and ruddy,
outstanding among ten thousand.
His head is purest gold;
his hair is wavy and black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels.
His cheeks are like beds of spice yielding perfume.
His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh.
His arms are rods of gold set with chrysolite.
His body is like polished ivory decorated with sapphires.
His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars.
His mouth is sweetness itself;
he is altogether lovely.
This is my lover,
this my friend,
O daughters of Jerusalem. (5:9-16)

This section opens with the daughters of Jerusalem asking the woman a question: “how is it that this guy is so special?” So, she tells them, describing her lover’s physical attributes. There is no shallowness in this; the point of the Song of Songs is to express the delights of physical love. So the description of one another’s bodies is the appropriate focus. So she describes his body, just as he with her. She, too, describes him in terms of a garden, in terms of precious stones and metals, focusing on all his parts. And yet, there is more to him than just the individual parts; she points out at the end that he is altogether lovely, as a whole, and that he is both lover and friend. Her physical description of him, just as the physical description he made of her, sets us up for what follows: they will be playing in these gardens, these constructs of theirs. Both he and she delight completely in one another.

To emphasize: the purpose of the whole poem called the Song of Songs is to celebrate the joy of sexual expression, of the fulfillment of that pleasure. The poem is supposed to titillate, to excite. It achieves its purpose well, at least in its cultural context, to anyone who pays half attention, to anyone who is not shocked that sex would be in the Bible–as if sex and God somehow are incompatible. God’s first commandment (Genesis 1:28 : be fruitful and multiply, i.e. have sex) is a lot of fun. Why do we then think that God intends us to be unhappy? But of course the answer shows up in the same story just a couple of chapters later in Genesis, because we–in the persons of Adam and Eve–failed to really love God, and we then decided that God was holding out on us, that he didn’t have our best interest in mind. We doubted that God loved us as much as we love ourselves. And that little doubt is still with us, eating at us, destroying our relationships with God and with one another.

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Once again, take warning all who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
not one of them is alone.
Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.
Your neck is like the tower of David,
built with elegance;
on it hang a thousand shields,
all of them shields of warriors.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. (4:1-5)

The man is speaking, and does what all men do with their beloved: he praises her beauty. Nicely, this is poetry, and so he is very descriptive, and does a much better job of it than the average male trying to say nice things without a script. He is very detailed, focusing on various aspects of her body. What appeals to a woman, I suspect, is not the words alone, or perhaps only tangentially; what appeals to her is who it is that is telling her this, and the pleasure for her comes in knowing, thanks to his words, that he finds her desirable, and that he loves her. I’m curious; do women actually enjoy hearing the man they love praising the beauty of specific body parts? In any case, that’s what the man in this poem does, and it’s what many men do.

Obviously, some of the descriptions and comparisons might not be as well recieved today as they were in the agrarian culture in which the author of this poem lived. I’m unsure if comparing breasts to fawns and eyes to doves would still work well or not. The imagery is important, though, and needs to be noted, since these pictures will be played off on for the remainder of the poem. As we go along, it is important to remember which parts of their bodies get compared to which objects.

Until the day breaks and the shadows flee,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense.
All beautiful you are, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.
Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
come with me from Lebanon.
Descend from the crest of Amana,
from the top of Senir,
the summit of Hermon,
from the lions’ dens
and the mountain haunts of the leopards.
You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. (4:6-9)

The man continues praising her, encouraging her to give in to him; he moves now to more active seduction, asking her to leave her place of repose, to let her garden come free, to open herself to him. The use of the word “sister” in love poetry is something the Egyptians did regularly–though sometimes with the ancient Egyptian royal family, it was literal on top of being the normal convention for love poetry. But in the Song of Songs, it is merely standard convention. It speaks to the intimacy of the relationship, and does not at all reference that she is actually a sister, any more than the term commonly translated “beloved” in the Song of Songs, means “aunt” or “uncle”. The taboos about having sex with close relatives is pretty universal in human societies, largely a consequence of biological necessity.

An interesting thing here is the use of the word “heart”; as westerners, we read that and a particular image comes to mind: the heart as the emotions, that his emotions have been taken by her; we read that as the English idiom; and that is not really quite what is in view here. The word “heart” here means his mind; she has captivated his mind; he is obsessed with her; his every thought now is in terms of her. He cannot think without her being in his mind, in his thoughts; he closes his eyes, and there she is, a picture in his mind; what he means is the English idiom, that he can’t get her out of his head. And here, it is her beauty, her physical form, which has taken over his mind, his every waking thought. She has become to him like a song, a tune that is stuck in his head, that he just can’t drive out. And frankly, he doesn’t mind at all. So it’s not Disney’s Small World that he’d be comparing her to.

How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!
Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon,
with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices.
You are a garden fountain,
a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon.
Awake, north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread abroad.

Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
(4:10-16)

This one is not too tough to figure out; the man continues his praise of her, describing her as a hidden or locked-up garden, a garden that delights all the senses: taste, touch, smell, sound and sight. She is compared favorably to things that were expensive and desirable.

Her reaction is in essence: “so why don’t you come up and see me some time?” She invites him to sample the delights of which he has been merely describing from a distance, as an outsider. She tells him that he is welcome in this marvelous garden, and that he can enjoy it fully, as much as he wants.

Some of the images are not unique to this poem. For instance, take a look at the phrases and images used in Proverbs 5:15-19:

Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well.
Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
Let them be yours alone,
never to be shared with strangers.
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer–
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.

The similarity in images is not too surprising, given that both Proverbs and Song of Songs have traditionally been ascribed to the same author: Solomon. As you’ve no doubt noticed in reading through the stuff I churn out, there are certain, perhaps annoying, turns of phrase, ideas and images that I keep reusing. Writers are like that. Solomon was no different.

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Once again, take warning all who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him.
I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city.
“Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
till I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the room of the one who conceived me.
Daughters of Jerusalem,
I charge you by the gazelles
and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
until it so desires. (3:1-5)

This is one of what seems at first to be almost a dream sequence; the woman talks about awakening in the night and not having the one she loves with her, which sends her out on a hunt, prowling about the city and questioning the night watchmen. So the obvious question arises, is this referencing a late night stroll about the city of Jerusalem, or are we dealing with some sort of double entendres again? When we consider that she brings him back to her “mother’s house”, to the “room of the one who conceived” her, and then ends this segment with the importance of not arousing love too quickly, it would seem to me that something other than wandering around the city streets is in view. Perhaps it means that she spent the night trying to keep him up, or trying to get him up; perhaps he needed a dose of viagra? But given that such things didn’t exist then, she had to work at it the old fashioned way, until finally she got the desired arousal and was able to bring “him” into her vagina. Then the closing lines perhaps reference the need for patience and working with a guy on those rare occasions (well, the guy explains that ‘it never happened to me before…’) when things don’t quite come together as quickly as both parties would like, in contrast to it working too quick.

Who is this coming up from the desert
like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh
and incense made from all the spices of the merchant?
Look!
It is Solomon’s carriage,
escorted by sixty warriors,
the noblest of Israel,
all of them wearing the sword,
all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
prepared for the terrors of the night.
King Solomon made for himself the carriage;
he made it of wood from Lebanon.
Its posts he made of silver,
its base of gold.
Its seat was upholstered with purple,
its interior lovingly inlaid by the daughters of Jerusalem.
Come out, you daughters of Zion,
and look at King Solomon wearing the crown,
the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding,
the day his heart rejoiced. (3:6-11)

That something more than just to give a description of the carriage of Solomon is the point of this section seems obvious from several respects. One, it begins by asking “who is this” and answers it by an announcement of Solomon’s carriage. That is hardly a who, at least at first glance. But then one sees interesting statements that force a re-evaluation of what’s actually being talked about here. For instance, “perfumed with myrrh” and “terrors of the night” are a couple of the phrases that make me go, “hmmmm.” And with mention of the “crown with which his mother crowned him” when combined with the mention of her taking him “to her mother’s house, the room of the one who conceived her” in the previous section, leads me to think that something other than a carriage is the point here. Consider the talk of his carriage, made by him, with its “post” and “base” and then moving on to the “crown.” Consider, too, that it “arises” from the desert, like a “column” of smoke. This makes me think that perhaps we’re looking at an elaborate and poetic description of his penis and its reaction to her–especially given that an erect, circumcised penis would have a head that look as if it has a crown on it. Certainly it would be “rejoicing” on the day of his wedding. Given the point of the Song of Songs, I don’t think I’m making too great a leap to imagine that the poem is more likely to be talking about a penis than about a some sort of fancy wheeled contrivance belonging to Solomon.

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A warning to those who read this post. The language that follows is somewhat explicit. If discussions of sex offend you, then you might want to skip this blog post. Of course, you might also want to make a point of avoiding ever reading the Song of Songs in your Bible.

I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.

Like a lily among thorns
is my darling among the maidens.

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men.
I delight to sit in his shade,
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
He has taken me to the banquet hall,
and his banner over me is love. (2:1-4)

The passage begins with the woman speaking. Oddly the first two lines have been used in a Christian hymn which applied them to Jesus. Why would a song do that? It comes from the popular, though obviously mistaken, view that the Song of Songs is the story of Jesus’ love for the church. Even so, it remains very peculiar that the popular hymn would misapply the words, since it rather obvious that it is the woman who is describing herself here.

Unsurprisingly, I do not like that song at all. It annoys me. The woman is a rose, and a lily, here. The man then reacts agreeably, telling her that she is very special, more wonderful than any of the other women in his life. Remember, again, that the content of this poem is taking place in a polygamous setting.

Notice how this whole section transitions very nicely from what we looked at in chapter one:the two lovers are on the grass, beneath the cedar and fir (or alternatively, the woman is the grass and the man is the cedar covering her with his shade). After he responds to her self-description as a rose or lily, she speaks up again in the last six lines of this section. Notice that just as he recognizes her as special among all the women in his life, she too, is not inexperienced or naive: she finds him to be special compared to all the other men she knows.

And then she returns to double entendres: she delights to sit in his shade, his fruit is sweet to her taste, he has “taken me to his banquet table.” It is possible, I think, that she is talking about oral sex.

The passage also maintains the theme of the covering of the cedar and fir, of course, which has heavy sexual overtones. And then this segment ends with “his banner over me is love.” Of course that phrase shows up in another Christian song. I don’t think it really fits with the song so well, since it seems to be in the context of this woman giving her lover a blow job. I doubt that’s the picture the old Christian song was going for.

It should be obvious by this point that the Hebrew word translated “love” has an enormous range of meanings, essentially identical to the range of use for the word “love” in English. Consider: Jacob “loved” his his tasty food (Gen. 27:14 — the NIV translates it “liked” but its the same word as Song of Songs uses throughout). It is unlikely that these two people are loving each other in quite the same way as Jacob loved his food, or vice-versa.

At least I don’t think so…

Strengthen me with raisins,
refresh me with apples,
for I am faint with love.
His left arm is under my head,
and his right arm embraces me.
Daughters of Jerusalem,
I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. (2:5-7)

Given the context with with the previous section, which I suggested might have to do with oral sex, it is also possible that this is what is going on in this bit, too, and is thus just continuing with that theme. On the other hand, both the previous images and these, may instead reference genital to genital sex. Either seems possible. What we know for certain that is unlikely is that she’s talking about eating actual apples and raisins. The phrasing about how he is embracing her does not really exclude either oral or genital sex in my opinion. Culturally, I’m not certain which is more probable in this context, either.

This segment ends with a charge to the other women: that love should not be aroused or awakened too quickly. I take that to mean, especially in light of the fact that she charges them by the gazelles and does, that she is pointing out the importance of sloooow, when it comes to love making. Love making is not something to be rushed through. Of course, this might also be enjoining patience for the relationship in general: that the issue between them need not be forced; that if she is merely patient, she will receive that which she most desires. Given what will follow, my bet is on the idea that she wants slowness, in contrast to the male tendency to move too fast when it comes to sex, both in wanting it and in performing it.

Listen!
My lover!
Look!
Here he comes,
leaping across the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Look!
There he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattice. (2:8-9)

She is very excited to see him, of course; that is obvious from the wording. The image of mountains and hills, behind the wall, gazing through the window, and the lattice of course all deal with barriers of one sort or another–barriers that she knows her lover will be able to overcome. She may be excited, she may be looking forward to what he will do, but she is not yet, perhaps, entirely up to the task. It will take a little time, a little effort, a little patience and tenderness. He of course wants it now, but she must be roused and made ready. His prowess is compared to the gazelle and stag, which were noted for their sexual abilities, as well as their speed–at least in running. If gazelles and stags are anything like a pair of kangaroos that I saw going at it at the LA Zoo, they make up for any speed with their stamina. The kangaroos went at it for at least an hour, nonstop.

My lover spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one,
and come with me.
See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
my beautiful one, come with me.
My dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.”

Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.
My lover is mine and I am his;
he browses among the lilies.
Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills. (2:10-17)

And of course the point of this final section from chapter two of the Song of Songs is relatively clear: the man praises her beauty. She is described in terms of vines, flowers, a dove hiding in the clefts of the rocks, and the mountains. Her response is to announce that he needs to rescue her from anything that might spoil the vineyard. Obviously, she is that vineyard, a vineyard that is in bloom.

The man is described as browsing among the lilies all night long — obviously her body. She plays off him being a gazelle or stag again, on the “rugged hills”, which is self-referential.

Really, it doesn’t take much paying attention to realize that these two people are completely enamored of each other. They compete to find metaphorical ways to describe one another and their pleasures in exploring intimate details of their bodies. The point of the poem is to excite, to incite, to stir longing and desire, and to celebrate the wonder of the sexual experience between a man and woman who are in love. It’s too bad, really, that so many commentators during so much of church history didn’t pick up on the obvious. Had they, we today might have a much more relaxed, much healthier attitude toward sex and ourselves.

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Over the next seven days, my plan (we’ll see how it works out) is to give a commentary on the biblical text called the “Song of Songs,” or sometimes, the “Song of Solomon.” I’ll start this post with a brief introduction and outline of the biblical text, followed by an analysis and commentary on the first chapter. Tomorrow, I hope to continue with the second chapter, and so on.

I. Title

The book is called “Song of Songs” in Hebrew and in most modern English translations (NIV, for instance); in the King James Version, it received the title “Song of Solomon”. The Latin Vulgate called it “Canticles”.

II. Author and Setting

Its Solomonic authorship is widely credited, though the occurrence of some apparent Persian and Greek terms has led some to postulate a post-exilic date. Tradition would argue that since the book lays claim to Solomonic authorship, it is best to assume that is the case. Those who argue for Solomonic authorship point to the reference to Tirzah in Song of Songs 6:4, which was the capital of Jeroboam I and his successors (1 Kings 14:17). They suggest that it would not have been set in parallel with Jerusalem by a poet in either Israel or Judah, after the division of the kingdom. Therefore, traditionalists argue, the latest possible date for the book would be the outbreak of war between Jeroboam and Abijam, c. 915-913 BC (1 Kings 15:7). The reference in 6:8 to sixty queens and eighty concubines contrasts the figures of 1 Kings 11:3, which speaks of Solomon’s “seven hundred wives” and “three hundred concubines.” This is why traditionally it is believed that the Song of Songs composed early in Solomon’s reign: he hadn’t accumulated quite so many women, yet.

Also, traditionalists who favor of Solomonic authorship, point to the use in Song of Songs of the natural imagery and the use of the names of many plants and animals. They suggest this imagery would be consistent with Solomon’s interests according to 1 Kings 4:32.

Most modern scholars, however, do not believe that the book was actually composed by Solomon. Instead, they would argue that it comes much later. They would argue that whoever composed it, therefore, calls it the “Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” because the poem is set during his time, using his reputation with many women as the jumping off point for creating this erotic love poem.

The Song of Songs, more than any other book, has been kept in the dark ages in the thoughts of many interpreters, who continue to insist on the medieval approach of allegorical interpretation — even though they would never approach any other book of the Bible allegorically. The allegorical approach to the Song of Songs results in teaching that the story is figurative, representing Yahweh’s love for Israel, and by extension, Christ’s love for the church. Those who cling to this approach would argue, that if a wholly literalistic approach is taken to the poem, it is impossible to see why the Song of Songs would have been included as part of Scripture.

Like Esther, the Song of Songs never once mentions God. However, only if one takes the odd position that sex is an evil thing, would one find such a book as the Song of Songs inexplicable. As important as male-female relationships and romantic love are to human beings, it should not at all be surprising to discover that there is at least one book in the Bible devoted to the topic.

Therefore, the outline will follow the historical-grammatical interpretation of Scripture, and take the Song of Songs at face value — as an erotic love poem.

III. An Outline of Song of Songs

I. Title 1:1
II. First Poem 1:2-2:7
III. Second Poem 2:8-3:5
IV. Third Poem 3:6-5:1
V. Fourth Poem 5:2-6:3
VI. Fifth Poem 6:4-8:7
VII. Sixth Poem 8:8-14

To begin then:

Solomon’s Song of Songs.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth–
for your love is more delightful than wine.
Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the maidens love you!
Take me away with you–
let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.
We rejoice and delight in you;
we will praise your love more than wine.
How right they are to adore you! (1:2-4)

In the first verse, the phrase “song of songs” means “greatest song.” In Hebrew, to make something superlative, to mark it as the best, one would express the concept this way. Thus, “holy of holies” means “Holiest” or “Most Holy”; Lord of lords means “highest lord” or “most high lord” and so on.

Following the identification of the author, or the setting (depending on how you take it) the actual poem begins.

It opens with the woman speaking. I think that is a very important thing to notice; in fact, a remarkable part of the whole poem is the fact that it is told mostly from the woman’s point of view. The poem is a dialogue, but the woman is the primary focus, I believe.

Notice that it is set in a polygamous environment; there are other women involved with him: “no wonder the maidens love you!” and “how right they are to adore you.” Also the use of the plural pronoun “we” seems to fit that notion.

The man in view is portrayed as a king; in the story of the poem, he is Solomon, but the point is, I believe, to illustrate her admiration and how much she adores him. Notice that she is not shy about what she wants; and there is no shame or embarrassment here in what she wants. She wants him to take her away and have sex right now. She adores, rejoices and delights in him and the prospect of being with him. Too many people, women especially, have been brought up to feel ashamed of their own desires; they are taught to be quiet, and in earlier generations in this country at least, though perhaps not so much now, they were taught that sex was at best a duty, and certainly not something to be embraced passionately and enjoyed and celebrated.

So it is an exciting opening, and completely at odds with the notion that women are second class, or that sex is unclean.

So now, another couple verses of Song of Songs:

Dark am I,
yet lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I have neglected. (1:5-6)

The only sense of shame that the female protagonist of the poem suffers, is one of class; in the ancient world, the upper classes lived lives of ease, stayed in the shade, and did little physical labor; they tended toward obesity (in fact, the word translated “honor” in the old testament is a word meaning “heavy”, derived from the heavy-set nature of the upper, “honored” classes), because they always had plenty to eat, and their skin (in places like Israel, where the bulk of the Jewish population was essentially white) remained pale. The lower classes worked the fields, and so they were the ones that got the nice tans. Today of course, for the most part things are reversed; a tan indicates that an individual has enough free time to be able to spend it outdoors, either lying by a pool or playing some sport. But essentially, we feel no class sense from a tan; we just like how a tan makes us look; a man or a woman will usually be attracted to someone who is nice and tan. It makes us think “healthy” and “young”. And so the concern that this woman in the poem has for being “dark” is a cultural thing which no longer resonates (to try, as some have, to see some racial thing in this verse is obviously not quite right, though perhaps if we use that to illustrate a class or social stigma attaching to a relationship, then it can work). Oddly enough, in our culture, even the wealthiest of men, if he sees an attractive woman who’s working, say a fast food drive out, he might ask her out on a date, and might even think about developing a serious relationship with her. The fact that she has a crappy job wouldn’t bother him. In contrast, the odds of a wealthy woman asking out a guy working the fast food, thinking in terms of a serious relationship, are not as high. A double standard, that still exists, obviously.

But, in any case, in this poem, we have a class thing going on; she feels, briefly, a sense of “maybe I’m not good enough for him”, but then she overcomes it quickly enough by “explaining” why she looks as she does. And she says, that, despite her “neglected” appearance, she’s really one hot babe, anyhow.

We also, with the phrase “My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected” run across the first example of this double entendre, which will become a theme of the poem. She describes herself as a vineyard; it is unlikely that either the vineyard of her mom’s sons, nor her own vineyard have anything to do with actual grapes or wine. Think instead of a Cinderella situation, where she was forced to care for siblings and their needs, working while they primped and made themselves lovely, while she slaved to provide them their leisure. But in the end of this poem, it is this dark one, this “unworthy” one, who will live happily ever after in the prince’s palace.

The story of Cinderella shows up in several forms around the world. It is also a part of the story of this erotic poem.

Tell me, you whom I love,
where you graze your flock
and where you rest your sheep at midday.
Why should I be like a veiled woman
beside the flocks of your friends?

If you do not know, most beautiful of women,
follow the tracks of the sheep
and graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds.
I liken you, my darling,
to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh.
Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
your neck with strings of jewels.

We will make you earrings of gold,
studded with silver.

(1:7-11)

The woman wants to know where she can find him, where he might “graze his flock”; given that she follows this line with the question, “why should I be like a veiled woman”, she is not likely talking about where he’s keeping furry animals that go “baaaaaa”. A “veiled woman” was a prostitute; it is an idiom, like our “street walker” and she is concerned, I think, that she be more than a simple one night stand for him. Hence, the next few lines, which are placed in the mouth of the man she has the hots for: he is essentially telling her that “of course I’ll respect you in the morning”; so he tells her she is beautiful, and that the beauty of her cheeks deserves to be enhanced by earrings danging from her lobes, and that her lovely neck deserves the added beauty of a necklace. The women around him (remember the polygamous setting) are agreeable, and suggest that “we” will do this for you. So the willingness of the man to give her some jewelry, and for his other paramours to participate, is again designed as reassurance to her that she’ll get more from him than just a single night of pleasure. She’s looking for actual love, not just a momentary release of some tension.

The shepherd and sheep imagery will repeat periodically through the poem, together with the garden imagery; all of it is sexually oriented and is being used to romantic and erotic intent. I don’t think that actual shepherding and farming are ever the point in this poem. Heh.

While the king was at his table,
my perfume spread its fragrance.
My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh
resting between my breasts.
My lover is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi. (1:12-14)

The woman is speaking, of course; there is more than one word for breast in Hebrew; this is the one with the most obviously erotic connotation; of course, that’s apparent even in English translation.

As is the norm in Hebrew poetry, the first two lines of this section introduce the concept, which will then be expanded upon in what follows. The point is seduction. Her “perfume” goes out, grabs her intended, and draws him close to her; she links herself so closely to him, that he becomes the seduction itself, or perhaps, she feels seduced by him as much and as strongly as she attempts to seduce him; the two become inextricably mixed, and inseparable. She and he are both perfume to one another.

Again, notice the imagery of a vineyard appearing. It should also be noted the important part that scent will play in this poem, as well as the visual images. Actually, all the senses are appealed to in this poem: visual, tactile, taste, smell, sound. All are, or will be, aroused to erotic effect.

The first chapter of the Song of Songs ends as follows:

How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves.

How handsome you are, my lover!
Oh, how charming!
And our bed is verdant.
The beams of our house are cedars;
our rafters are firs. (1:15-17)

The first three lines are spoken by the man, the last five by the woman; again, this is not hard to tell in Hebrew, thanks to the gender specific nature of that language. The man expresses how beautiful she is; her response then is to praise his appearance; the word translated beautiful and handsome are both the same word in Hebrew, only the gender is different; the first is feminine, the second masculine. But we generally don’t refer to guys as beautiful or pretty (didn’t we just have this discussion?), hence the way the translation has been made.

Now, I’ve been using the NIV translation for this commentary/lesson for you, but the last three lines just don’t quite have what it takes, so here’s a better way of putting it:

Our couch is grass,
we are shaded by cedar trees for a roof
and spreading firs for a ceiling.

The point being, we have a continuation of the garden theme; and she is very ready and willing for him to have sex with her, any time, anywhere. They’re under these trees; that’s good enough for her; all he needs to do is ask. She adores him; the setting doesn’t matter much. Of course, in some sense you get a double entendre here, too, since he and she are presented in terms of a garden, especially later in the poem. So in some sense the couch of grass may also be her, while the cedar and fir above the grass are him.

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A commonly held opinion expressed on the internet goes more or less as follows: “The bible is a poorly translated transcription of poorly translated oral history and folk legends told by stone age goat herders plagiarized from the religious texts of ancient Egypt and Babylon.”

If you think this is right, then I’ve got news for you: you’re both gullible and closer to being an ignorant goat herder than any biblical author.

1. Where the Bible came from:

David was famously a shepherd, but then he also became a soldier and later the king of Israel. Other professions show up among the scriptural authors. Paul was a rabbi, Peter, James and John operated fishing boats that they used to catch fish in large nets. So far as we can tell, none of the biblical authors were noted for being goat herders. None of them were notably ignorant: after all, they could read and write well and they used rather complex narrative and poetic techniques. All that being said, most of the Old Testament authors are actually unknown, so perhaps some of them were rather literate, well-educated goat herders.

Modern scholars do not believe that the Bible was plagiarized from the religious texts of ancient Egypt and Babylon. In fact, the one culture and religious documents that the Israelites clearly did not make use of were the Egyptian documents. For instance, one of the better known of the Egyptian creation stories has the god creating the human race by masturbating. Not quite like anything we see in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible.

But certainly there is a common cultural heritage between some of the Old Testament materials and the civilizations of Mesopotamia (of which Babylon was one), but most scholars think that is more a consequence of common heritage rather than from any copying from one another. In some cases, the biblical materials are actually consciously criticizing some of the well-known Mesopotamian stories. For instance, the creation narrative of Genesis is a conscious attack on one of the prevailing and popular Babylonian mythologies of the time known as Enuma Elish. Where the Babylonian creation epic posits gods in conflict who created humans as slaves, the Genesis account presents the gods of the Babylonian myth–the Deep (Babylonian Tiamat), the sun, moon and stars–not as gods, but as inanimate objects created by God. Meanwhile, human beings are made not as slaves, but in the image and likeness of God. God then gives the world to humanity to rule over it.

2. Translation and transmission of the texts:

The Bible has better manuscript evidence than any other ancient text, with thousands of copies floating around. There was no grand conspiracy, no control over them, no fiddling or voting on their contents. The books that make up the Old Testament were originally written in either Hebrew or a closely related language, Aramaic. An early translation into Greek was completed around 200 BC. Until 1946/1947, the oldest complete Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Old Testament dated to about 1000 AD. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946/1947, scholars suddenly had at their disposal texts a thousand or more years older than any biblical texts they had up until that point. Guess what? The texts are virtually identical. What’s different? Mostly the spelling, here and there. And the Dead Sea texts are not restricted or suppressed. You can go into any library just about and get them in photographic reproduction or translated. For that matter, you can see them all online at The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library without even leaving your chair.

As to translation, the Bible is not poorly translated. Quite the opposite. There have been numerous translations made over the years and new ones come out all the time. It has, in fact, been translated multiple times into just about every language on the planet. Additionally, most Catholic priests, rabbis and protestant ministers have been trained in the languages of the Bible themselves. The Bible is as well translated as any other work of literature. Certainly some things will get lost in translation—like the puns—but that hardly makes them bad translations. Or do you insist that one can read Goethe only in the original German and Tolstoy only in the original Russian and Homer only in the original Greek, and … well, you get the picture. And the translations differ among themselves in the same way that translations of Homer, Tolstoy, Dante or Gothe differ among themselves. Chances are, if you want to read Dante, you’re better off choosing a recent translation than one from the time of Shakespeare, unless you, for some reason, have a hankering for Elizabethan English. Same goes for translations of the Bible. The still popular King James Version (made in 1611) can be a tough slog for a 21st century English speaker. Just saying.

3. The Bible is misogynistic, encourages slavery, and encourages violence and human sacrifice

Because, says our enlightened and well versed critic who imagines goat herders wrote complex poetry: look at all the stories that have douchebags in it doing those horrible things.

Um.

The science fiction author Larry Niven once got a letter from a reader excoriating him for what some of the characters said and did in one of his books and accused him of being a horrible person. Niven responded: “There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is ‘idiot’.” Those who criticize the Bible as if it advocates murder, rape, female oppression, slavery and the like are the sort of people that fit the technical, literary term Niven so aptly applied to his own critics. Now I suppose, for example, that one could read the story about the Levite who allows his wife to be raped and murdered and then chops her into twelve parts (see Judges 19-20), not as a horrible indictment of the anarchy that existed in pre-monarchical Israel, but instead, contrary to all reasonableness, as an instruction manual on how women wish to be treated. But I suspect most people, your average reader, would get the actual point of the story. Those who don’t—well, Niven already explained their problem.

Likewise, slavery is not encouraged in the Bible, though the Bible does mention slavery quite a bit: after all, the Israelites spent some 480 years as slaves in Egypt. And they didn’t seem to much enjoy it. Which may have colored their perception of the institution. Thus, slavery is portrayed as an evil, while getting freed from slavery is recognized as a really good thing–and those who failed to free their slaves tended to get criticized. The image of slavery is subsequently used in the Bible as a metaphor for slavery to sin–and just as God freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, so He can free people from sin and death. Even the theological term “redemption” used in the New Testament (in Greek) means “to be set free from slavery.”

And yeah, Abraham admittedly tries to sacrifice his son Isaac. Try being the operative term. God doesn’t let him actually do it. And the Bible more than a few times later condemns human sacrifice in the harshest terms.

If you read the Bible like Niven’s idiot, then yeah, you can make it out to be a horrible misogynistic, anti-human book. Otherwise, not so much.

4. The Bible contradicts modern science; it says that the world and universe were created 10,000 years ago, that the world is flat, and that the sun goes around the earth

Um, no.

The point of the creation narrative in Genesis (see above) was to attack and criticize the prevailing myths of the time (especially the Babylonian Enuma Elish) and to argue that there was but one God, who made people to rule over the earth, who are all related, and that the one God was everyone’s God, not limited to only one geographic spot or one particular group of people. Despite those who wish to argue otherwise, the Bible doesn’t actually say anything about how or when the universe was made.

Likewise, the Bible doesn’t discuss cosmology, biology, electronics, carburetor repair, whether you should prefer the products of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, or many of the other things seem to be such a focus of so many. The Bible’s primary focus throughout, as Jesus would later tell an inquirer (see Matthew 22, among other spots), was to teach people to love each other and to love God.

So it’s really not so complicated—except that Bible uses stories to make its point, and the stories, unsurprisingly, are made up of both good guys and bad guys and lots of bad stuff happens as well as good stuff (stories tend to capture the interest of readers more if there is some conflict, maybe some violence, even some explosions, like Sodom and Gomorrah or the bad guys getting swallowed up by the earth opening beneath their feet). Only a, uh, idiot would imagine that the point of the Bible was to encourage people to do the bad stuff. Do you read Orwell’s 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale and think, “yeah, 1984 is a how-to guide for totalitarians, and the author of the Handmaid’s Tale thinks women should be oppressed and be used only for breeding purpose.

The Bible is a work of literature. It uses the same sorts of techniques as any other literature. I’m not sure why this is so hard for people to grasp. But then, some people really are idiots. So I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s not as if no one ever misread any other book, magazine article, or newspaper story, never misunderstood a speech, or pulled a politicians words out of context. And I suppose people even, as hard as it is to imagine, misunderstand and misinterpret the clear words of their spouses, children, parents, friends, bosses, and employees. Who knew?

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