Immerse: Poets Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 193
IMMERSED IN SONG OF SONGS
W H E N W E FA L L I N L O V E , we
desperately want to express what we feel. In
such times, we often look to songs and poems written by others to help
us say what we would like to say. Almost all cultures have a treasury of
love songs that people draw upon to declare their love to one another.
The cultures of the Middle East, including that of ancient Israel, are
no exception. A collection of these love songs has been preserved for
us in the Song of Songs. It contains song lyrics that, like the psalms,
have been preserved from earlier times to help people celebrate their
devotion to and delight in another person.
A traditional heading to the book identifies Solomon as the writer of
these songs, and at one point they describe the splendor of his wedding. For this reason, the book is sometimes called the Song of Solomon. (The author is not otherwise identified in the poems themselves.)
But read as a whole, the collection follows the courtship and marriage
of a young man and woman. It presents a series of romantic conversations between them, punctuated by observations from the “young
women of Jerusalem,” presumably the bride’s friends.
It’s important to appreciate that in traditional Hebrew culture, as in
many other world cultures, brides and grooms are often portrayed (and
sometimes even dressed) as queens and kings. So it may actually be
this practice that is reflected in such lyrics as, “Come out to see King
Solomon, young women of Jerusalem. He wears the crown his mother
gave him on his wedding day, his most joyous day.”
This allusion to the wedding couple as a king and queen in a garden
reminds us of the first couple of the Bible, Adam and Eve. We recall
that humans are God’s appointed rulers of creation, and God himself
delights in the goodness of physical, sensual love. Our joy is a reflection
of God’s own joy in his creatures.
Using richly evocative symbolism drawn from the natural world, these
songs portray the beauties of the human body and the splendors of
human love as glorious aspects of God’s creation. No book in the Bible
uses the imagery of poetry more densely and elaborately than the Song
of Songs. And this celebration of love gives us a sense that even as we
await God’s renewal of all things in his new garden, some aspects of our
present life already anticipate the joys that are to come.
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