Thoughts on the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs has always puzzled me, as I imagine it has puzzled lots of other people.

I may not have great literary antenna but I have always thought that the repeated phrase found throughout the book, which is just about its only direct address or command by the bride to those outside the story, holds the key to understanding the book's message. Repeated three times in 2:7, 3:5, and 8:4 is the phrase: 'I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem [...] that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.' This book it appears is about knowing the 'time to embrace, and [the] time to refrain from embracing' (Eccl 3:5).

Structurally key to the book is the only other time that the bride 'adjures' the 'daughters of Jerusalem' which is in 5:8, and is for them to find her beloved and tell him that she is 'sick with love'. I think this marks a turning point in the story. Up till this time it has been too early to awaken love, which has shown in the confusion and obstacles which mark the first two-thirds of the story. It follows the dream sequence where she has both longed for him, but also been unsure of her love - her 'soul failed' (5:6) and she lost him. However, after 5:8 both the bride and bridegroom seem much more sure of their relationship with each other. The bride is challenged 'What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?' and she answers persuasively so that the 'others' agree to help her find him (6:1).

She seeks to find if the time is now right to awake love 'to see whether the vines had budded, whether the pomegranates were in bloom' (6:11, 7:12). It clearly is by the wonderful words that the couple shower on each other. They are encouraged to return and present herself to the community (6:13). As the right time has arrived she 'comes up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved' (8:5). Now finally it is the time for love to be awakened and the bride declares 'Under the apple tree I awakened you' (8:5).

The watchmen in the story have always confused me. They appear benignly in 3:3 and the bride finds her bridegroom immediately after seeing them. In 5:7 however they are violent, abuse her and seem to prevent her finding her love. Their role as 'watchmen of the walls' should explain their identity. At the end of the book we read of others who have responsibility for walls (8:8-9):

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?
If she is a wall,
we will build on her a battlement of silver,
but if she is a door,
we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

They are presumably her brothers who in the OT often seem to have responsibility for protecting their sisters. In Israelite society romance was both public, arranged and dealt with in community and especially family. Throughout the book it is never just the lovers who are involved in this romance.

The 'daughters of Jerusalem', the young women, and those who have a role in protecting her, have a responsibility to ensure that love is not forced early, and sex does not happen until the appropriate time. Coercion to force love, or prevent it is the folly this wisdom book opposes.

The Song of Songs is both a cautionary tale of how things can go wrong, but also of how wonderfully it can come together in the end. In the end there is 'peace' after all the commotion of the early story. It is something to look forward to.

BTW if as I have incoherently argued, not awakening love too early, and the responsibility of the lovers and the community in behaving in line with this, is central to the purpose of this book, then I cannot see how a description of the relationship of God to Israel or Christ to the Church is the original intention of the author. Which is not to deny that it is not pointed to, as it is in every loving relationship no matter how marred by sin. Although I have to admit fault is surprisingly difficult to find with the bridegroom given my interpretation....