Song of Solomon
Love poetry, unapologetically physical, right in the middle of the Bible.
Who wrote it: The title says 'which is Solomon's', which could mean by him, for him, or in his style. The date is unknown, and some of the vocabulary looks late. The woman speaks more lines than anyone else in the book.
What it is
There's a woman, there's a man, and there's a chorus of 'daughters of Jerusalem' who ask questions. The woman opens, and she's the book's main voice: let him kiss me, his love is better than wine. She describes herself as dark from working the vineyards and lovely anyway. He describes her with images that were compliments in their world (eyes like doves, teeth like a flock of matched sheep) and can sound bizarre in ours. She describes him just as thoroughly.
The poems move between longing and being together, searching and finding. Twice she looks for him at night through the city, and once the watchmen beat her. There's a wedding procession, a garden that's very obviously her body, and a refrain she gives the chorus three times: don't wake love up until it's ready. That's the closest the book comes to advice, and it's a warning about timing, not a ban.
The climax is chapter 8: set me as a seal on your heart, because love is as strong as death, its flashes are flashes of fire, floods can't drown it, and anyone who tried to buy it would be laughed at. The book ends with her still calling him to come quickly.
For most of history, Jewish and Christian readers took it as allegory: God and Israel, Christ and the church. That reading isn't wrong to find here, given how often the prophets describe God as a husband. But the plain sense is two people who want each other, and the Bible chose to keep that, without moralizing, between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. Take that as a statement about what God thinks of bodies and desire.
Verses worth keeping
6Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of the LORD. 7Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsSet me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, because love is as strong as death. Jealousy is as harsh as the grave. Its sparks are sparks of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Floods of water can't put love out, and rivers can't drown it. If a man offered everything he owned for love, he'd be laughed out of the room.
The one place the book names God, and it's to say love's fire is his. This is the verse people read at weddings, and it earns it.
- Gen Zsame meaning, your words
My love is mine, and I'm his. He grazes among the lilies.
Mutual, in five words. She says it again in 6:3 with the order flipped.
I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up, nor awaken love, until it so desires.
Gen Zsame meaning, your wordsI make you promise, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the wild deer: don't stir up love, don't wake it, until it wants to wake.
Said three times in the book. Not 'don't fall in love'. More like: don't force it before it's ready, because you can't un-wake it.
- Gen Zsame meaning, your words
You're beautiful all over, my love. There's not one flaw in you.
Said by someone who's just spent six verses looking. Being seen entirely and called flawless is what the book thinks love sounds like.
Read Song of Solomon
The full text, every chapter, from the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation. Pick a chapter below. The highlighted verses are the place to start if you have never read it.
Song of Solomon 2
1I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.
2As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
3As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4He brought me to the banquet hall. His banner over me is love.
5Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.
6His left hand is under my head. His right hand embraces me.
7I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, or by the hinds of the field, that you not stir up, nor awaken love, until it so desires.
8The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping on the mountains, skipping on the hills.
9My beloved is like a roe or a young deer. Behold, he stands behind our wall! He looks in at the windows. He glances through the lattice.
10My beloved spoke, and said to me, “Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.
11For behold, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone.
12The flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
13The fig tree ripens her green figs. The vines are in blossom. They give out their fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.”
14My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places of the mountainside, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.
15Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that plunder the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom.
16My beloved is mine, and I am his. He browses among the lilies.
17Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young deer on the mountains of Bether.
Questions about Song of Solomon
Is Song of Solomon really about sex?
Yes. It's about desire, bodies, kissing, a garden that's plainly a metaphor for hers, and two people wanting to be alone together. It's also about love as something fierce, mutual and worth more than money, and it's careful about timing. It doesn't describe a wedding night in detail, and it doesn't lecture. The Bible put it here without apology, which tells you something about how God regards the whole subject.
Isn't it really about God and the church?
That's how it was read for centuries, and the Bible does use marriage as a picture of God and his people all over the prophets. So the allegory isn't invented from nothing. But the book itself never says so; it's a woman and a man talking. The healthiest reading takes the human love story at face value first, and then notices that it tells you something about a God who describes his own love in these terms.
Why are the compliments so weird?
Because they're three thousand years old and from a farming culture. Teeth like a flock of freshly washed sheep means white, even and none missing, which was rarer then. A neck like a tower means she carries herself with dignity. Hair like goats streaming down a hillside is dark, thick and moving. They're not jokes; they're the images that were available. Translate the feeling, not the livestock.
Why is it in the Bible at all?
Ancient rabbis argued about it, and Rabbi Akiva reportedly called it the holiest of all the writings. It's there because Israel kept it, sang it and read it at Passover. What it adds to the Bible is a witness that desire, beauty and romantic love are God's ideas and good in themselves, not just tolerated. Without it the Bible would say a lot about sex going wrong and almost nothing about it going right.