Tag: Solomon

Book Briefs: “The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs” by Philip Ryken

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

If you were to list the most popular books of the Bible — those most preached from or commented on — would Song of Solomon make your list? Probably not. In his new book The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs, Philip Ryken points out that in actuality for most of Church history (up through the 1600s), Song of Solomon would find its place near the top of that list (p. 44)! This is surprising to anyone familiar with Solomon’s Song because no book in the Bible is more sure to bring redness to the face when read aloud in mixed company! Indeed the book is a collection of love poems centering on the relationship between a man and woman, which like many love poems can be quite suggestive and evocative (almost erotic).

For those who need help in understanding and appreciating the Song of Solomon I recommend picking up Philip Ryken’s new book The Love of Loves in the Song of Songs. This book helpfully includes the entire biblical text (ESV) of Song of Solomon alongside Ryken’s easy to read devotional thoughts on this fascinating (and often troubling) book.

In earlier eras of the church, Song of Solomon was often interpreted allegorically as a way to sanctify its use in the church. Ryken approaches the Song in a similar way noting that it “awakens a desire for intimacy that can be satisfied only by a personal relationship with the living God.” (p. 44). He notes how sexual imagery is often used to describe Israel’s rejection of the exclusive worship of Jehovah. And marriage itself is a picture both of God’s relationship with Israel, and more especially (from our perspective) Christ’s relationship with the Church. Yet Ryken stops short of reading the book allegorically: there are parallels between the relationship between Christ and the Church in the relationship idealized in Song of Solomon, but there is also something to be learned with regard to human relationships as well.

The context of the love relationship described is, according to Ryken, a covenant marriage: he affirms that the book upholds traditional Christian teaching that sexuality is intended to flourish within (and only within) a marriage between a man and a woman. Ryken also holds that the book uses Solomon as an ideal figure but the relationship described is not necessarily Solomon’s. He doesn’t speak too dogmatically on that interpretive point, however. Ryken does draw out important lessons from the book with regard to singleness, purity, engagement and marriage — and more.

But Song of Solomon is more than a marriage manual or typological description of Christ and the Church. It is poetry. Ryken often describes the book as a collection of song lyrics: “Read this book the way you read the liner notes to an album of love songs” (p. 31-32). Ryken masterfully reads the poetry and follows the Hebrew text to spell out who is talking and sets the stage, so we can follow along and enjoy the love poems and their underlying story.

One other point deserves mention with respect to Ryken’s handling of the text. Ryken does not eagerly proclaim Song of Solomon as a manifesto on sexual liberation. Instead he finds its instruction on marital love appropriately muted by the poetic nature of the book, and not as graphic or explicit as quite a few modern writers envision.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Love of Loves. It rekindled my appreciation for Solomon’s Song. I highly recommend it.

Pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers:
Westminster Bookstore, Amazon, ChristianBook.com, or direct from Crossway.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by the publisher. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.

About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.

Book Briefs: “A Better December: Proverbs to Brighten Christmas” by Steven Estes

~ Bob Hayton ~ 5 Comments

A Better December: Proverbs to Brighten Christmas by Steven EstesDon’t look now but December is right around the corner. This time of year can be as stressful and frantic as it is enjoyable and memorable. And as the pace of life quickens for everyone, the stress and panic seem to outweigh the peace and quiet.

Steven Estes has offered us a short but poignant book to help us have A Better December. He looks to the Biblical wisdom expressed by Solomon in Proverbs as a cure for the holiday woes. In just over 80 brief pages, Estes provides an extended meditation on a Christian vision for this time of year. With poetic verse (at times), and personal stories, Estes crafts a masterful tale that is disarming, fresh and inspiring. Each of the brief chapters reads like an essay or reflection and the takeaways are direct yet unscripted.

The book is short, gift-sized, you could say. It would adorn a coffee table if larger. The simple yet alluring sketches from illustrator Sarah Bland Halulko make this small book a joy to look at and page through.

It is the perfect gift book for the non-reader and reader alike. It points the interested to a few additional resources at the end, and encourages us all to find true life in Christ. The book would make for a great evangelistic aid or conversation starter and brings Solomon’s wisdom to bear on the contemporary world with unequaled ease. The writing style will make the book accessible to all and a joy to page through. For those looking for some inspirational reading this Christmas, look no further than this truly unique offering.

Pick up a copy of this book at any of the following online retailers: Westminster Bookstore, Amazon, ChristianBook.com, or direct from New Growth Press.

Disclaimer: This book was provided by New Growth Press. The reviewer was under no obligation to offer a positive review.

About Book Briefs: Book Briefs are book notes, or short-form book reviews. They are my informed evaluation of a book, but stop short of being a full-length book review.

John Sailhamer’s Messianic Interpretation of the Song of Solomon

~ Bob Hayton ~ 8 Comments

I came across the NIV Compact Bible Commentary and was delighted to find that John Sailhamer was its author. I’ve so enjoyed his The Meaning of the Pentateuch, that I picked up his commentary on the Pentateuch. I’m going to have to pick up this compact Bible commentary of his as well.

I was able to read the section on the Song of Solomon and was fascinated by Sailhamer’s insights, which I plan to share here. The following quotes are from his treatment of the book on pages 359-361 in the NIV Compact Bible Commentary (Zondervan, 1994), emphasis added.

Sailhamer begins by briefly recounting the traditional figurative interpretations of the book and the quite literal modern interpretations.

Although it is, on the face of it, just that–an ode to human love–one must ask whether it was originally intended to be read as such by its first audience. There are some indications within the book itself that suggest it was not…. There is no question that the book is a poetic drama of a lover’s longing for his beloved and of her willing complicity. To suggest, however, that this drama of two lovers is, in fact, the intent of the book is to confuse the poetic imagery with the purpose of the poem.

He is careful to say that this does not “justify the wholesale allegorizations of the poem that have characterized much of its history.” He admits the picture of the relationship of God/Christ with Israel/the Church, is a wonderful picture, but avers “there are no clues within the book itself to support such a reading. In the last analysis, one’s interpretation should come from within the book itself, and preferably from the clues given by the author himself.”

Sailhamer goes on to uncover several clues which do confirm that there is more to the Song than may meet the natural eye, however. He first points out from the overall structure of the book, that “the ‘reflections of love’ of the lover and the beloved do not progress and build in intensity in the course of the poem itself.” This is no average love story. He also argues that “though the poetic imagery comes close at times to suggesting the lover and his beloved have in fact come together and joined themselves in that union that they so longingly describe, the structure of the book itself suggests that has not yet happened.” Rather, the “lovers’ quest is an ideal, a longed-for desire that lies beyond their own grasp.”

Setting aside these preliminary observations for the moment, we come to Sailhamer’s focus on the “larger structural movement given to the poem by the author.” The repeated refrain throughout the book reads, “Do not arouse or awaken love until she [NIV, it] so desires” (2:7b; 3:5b; 8:4b). The meaning of this refrain comes from its connection to 8:5b where the author links it with the last statements made by the beloved (the woman): “Under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labor gave you birth.” In this connection, Sailhamer sees an allusion to two other key biblical texts: the prologue of Proverbs (chapters 1-9), and the account of the Fall in Genesis 3.

If an illusion [sic] is intended to these passages, it suggests that “the beloved” in the Song of Solomon is intended to be understood as a personification of “wisdom” and Solomon, or “the lover,” is intended as a picture of the “promised seed” of Ge 3:15, i.e., the Messiah.

He goes on:

What appears to have happened in the composition of the Song of Songs is that the author has seen in this love-song the possibility of a portrait of Israel’s long-awaited messianic king. Solomon, the son of David (cf. 2Sa 7:16), whose quest for wisdom characterizes the central core of the book of Proverbs, speaks in the prologue of that book of binding wisdom to himself and on his heart (Pr 3:3; 7:1-3) in the same way that in this book [Song of Solomon] the beloved says, “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm” (8:6). Moreover, in Proverbs Solomon says, “Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister'” (Pr 7:4), just as here the beloved says, “If only you were to me like a brother” (8:1). An extended comparison of these two books suggests that these are not mere coincidental similarities of words and phrases, but rather a deliberate “inter-textuality,” or allusion of one text to another. Such verbal links and allusions between the personified Dame Wisdom in the book of Proverbs and the young beloved in the Song of Songs invite our attempts to see a larger purpose behind this love song. I have suggested that such a purpose is to be found in the growing messianic hope found in these sections [i.e. the Wisdom Literature] of the OT.

Thus far then, Sailhamer has shown “the Song of Songs is intended as a portrait of the promised Messiah’s love for divine wisdom.” He goes on:

The Messiah is here pictured by Solomon, and “wisdom” is personified by the young and beautiful beloved. Throughout the poem the notion of love is idealized by the fact that its obtainment lies in the future. The quest for wisdom was aroused “under the apple tree” (8:4a), probably an allusion to the time of the Garden of Eden when the first woman “saw that the fruit of the tree was…desirable for gaining wisdom [and] she took some and ate it” (Ge 3:6). The obtainment of wisdom, however, will come only when one like Solomon comes to claim his beloved.

Sailhamer also sees the reference to “there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labor gave you birth” (8:5b) as suggesting that the author of the Song of Solomon “also understood both the promised ‘seed’ in Ge 3:15 and the reference to Eve as ‘the mother of all living’ (Ge 3:20) messianically.”

The result of these inter-textual links, “if… intended by the author of this book” then,

…would place this song on a quite different level than that of an ode to human love. It would, in fact, give credence to the traditional attempts to see more in this poem than meets the eye. It would also provide some guidelines along which the symbolism of the book is to be read.

One final argument supports Sailhamer’s conclusions:

Finally, such a reading of the book would also provide needed insight into the underlying justification for the book’s inclusion into the OT. There is general recognition today that the time of the formation of the OT canon coincided with a significant surge in the hope of the imminent return of the messianic king. This book was included in the canon, one might say, because it was intended as a picture of the Messiah.

I am not one to discount seeing the Divine Author’s hand behind the human book as intentionally foreshadowing future covenant realities. I would see no problem in taking Sailhamer’s lead and affirming that this authorial intent was expanded in the wisdom of God, to allow the book as we have it in our Bible to suggest analogies between Christ and the Church. Think of the many songs that have been written culling from the poetic imagery of this Song of Songs.

Still, I had never seen Sailhamer’s reasoning for seeing a human authorial intent behind the Song of Solomon including an explicit Messianic connection. I’d be interested to know, if any of my readers knows whether Sailhamer has written more explicitly of this connection. The section on the Song is only a few pages long in the NIV Compact Bible Commentary. Along these lines, I’d also love to know what you think of this. Does this ring true to you? Or do you think Sailhamer is off base?

You can pick up a copy of this little book at Amazon.com or direct from Zondervan.

The Gospel according to Solomon

~ fundyreformed ~ 5 Comments

In this post, I made the following observation:

“When encountering Scriptural teachings on types or comparisons, I typically just assumed that God was borrowing from the natural realm, so to speak, to highlight truth about His spiritual works. But the work of redemption was planned “before the foundation of the world”! So, when God created the world, the very way in which He did it was not arbitrary but planned….The family unit, with father-child and husband-wife relationships, were designed and established to reveal aspects of our relationship with God as His beloved children, and our relationship with Christ as His church-bride.”

We often draw on familial pictures of God as our Father, but how often do we contemplate God as our lover?

4
I recently ran across an article online that simply blew me away. It contends that the intimacy conveyed in the poetry of Solomon’s Song is a true picture of the joyous, intoxicating love God wants us to share with Him, for all eternity!

I will provide some excerpts from the article here for you all. May you too be filled with awe and praise for our God who has so intimately called us to such a love relationship with Him. The article is from Credenda Agenda and is written by Douglas Jones.

“The passion of the Song of Solomon is a majestic revealer of our sterility. It is one of the greatest expressions of the gospel in all of Scripture, and it shows us how little we understand. It gives us the very heart of Christian theology, the center of all doctrine and practice. And, yet, like an old friend, it has pity on us. It mercifully mocks our pervasive intellectualizing of the gospel and our clinical views of holiness.

“Can we hear the gospel in the following, without flinching?

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine…. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, that lies all night between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blooms, In the vineyards of En Gedi…. Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Sustain me with cakes of raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am lovesick. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me” (Song 1:2,13,14; 2:3-6).

“Most American Christians can’t get past the opening compliment to wine, let alone understand how lovemaking is supposed to transcend it. Our indifference to wine is connected to the unsensual utilitarianism of our marriage beds. They go hand in hand. And if our marriage beds are supposed to reflect the glories of the gospel, then it’s no wonder the Church is so ugly. The Song assumes these are all tied together. We will never live the gospel fully until we can embrace the blinding holiness of the marriage bed, the exhilarating bodily union of husband and wife, lovemaking.

….

“The Tabernacle and Temple reveal the holiness of sexual union too. They were not only called the “house of God” (Ex. 23:10; Jdgs. 20:18; Jn. 2:16), they were designed with the components of an actual house. In them we find the outer courts typical of our porches and yards and, inside, places for food preparation and cooking and cleansing. As you move further in, the rooms increase in privacy, until you reach the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place of judgment and communion. That is where God could finally meet with the bride. That is where the holiest communion took place. In our homes, too, we have walls and kitchens and washing places, and we have a most-private area of intimate communion as well: the bedroom, the marriage bed. The marriage bed in this analogy is parallel then, not to an outer room or any other outer furniture, but to the Holy of Holies. What goes on there is the most intimate communion of all between husband and wife. With the marriage bed as our Holy of Holies, it is not a place for abomination or degradation or pietistic indifference. Lovemaking is a glorious, positive holiness and ought to be celebrated as such; it is at the center of honoring God. (And thankfully, communion in the Holy of Holies is not a once-a-year affair anymore!)

….

“Real knowledge is bodily love and communion. It is imagination that is touching and indwelling. It isn’t dominated by the intellect and rationality. Yet our theologies (even articles like this one!) tend to be very intellectualistic. Imagine if we were to approach the marriage bed as intellectualistically as we approach our theology. We would kill the joy. You cannot analyze lovemaking without dispersing the delight. That is a wonderful aspect of the marriage bed. Lovemaking goes to the soul, far deeper than any reason can. Yet we can constrain the gospel in the same way. We often intellectualize the gospel to such an extent that people can’t know the joy – our children can’t know the joy. The lure and draw of sexual joy is supposed to parallel the lure of the goodness of God. The two go hand in hand. We strangle both while stuffing our children’s intellects, and then wonder what went wrong. We are a nonsensual, unpoetic people; we are foreigners to the Song of Solomon. [emphasis added]

“God has filled the universe with many earthy, imaginative symbols; of these lovemaking is very central….It is no evolutionary accident, for example, that lovemaking builds and climaxes in ecstatic joy. God didn’t have to design sex that way. But He did for some meaning. It certainly images the “joy inexpressible” (1 Pet. 1:8] that the bride has for Christ: “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps. 16:11). Like the marriage bed, this joy can’t always be held in; sometimes it just has to be shouted – “shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” (Ps. 32:11; cf. 33:11; 35:27; 65:13; 67:4; 132:9,16). Lovemaking, too, should never be too quiet.

“And it can turn our souls toward the deeper aspects of life. Note the Song of Solomon’s imaginative and sensual interplay between the created order and the marriage bed. Few, if any, syllogisms show up in the poem. But the Lord does tell us to smell and see and touch and taste in the Song: ‘How fair is your love, my sister, how much better is the scent of your perfumes than all spices…. You have doves’ eyes, your lips are like a strand of scarlet and your mouth is lovely…. The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a skillful workman. Your naval is a rounded goblet…. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies…. His body is carved ivory inlaid with sapphires. His legs are pillars of marble set on the bases of fine gold. His mouth is most sweet; yes, he is altogether lovely…. Let your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and the roof of your mouth like the best wine.’

“So much is built into this poetry. And so many battles lie at this crossroads within our own homes, quite apart from combatting the ugly immodesties and boring exhibitionisms of a surrounding pagan culture that is plain deer-eyed about real sexuality (James 3:14-15; Jude 1:16). Lovemaking can not only sanctify us, but it also shows us more about the nature of God and knowledge and education and all of life. By being a more sexual, a more sensual people, we can educate our children and congregations to delight in creation and redemption, paying attention to the symbols and delights that God has sculpted all around us. What a wonderful calling. Whatever is scented, whatever love is better than wine, whatever breasts are like towers, if there is anything perfumed or tasty, meditate on it and ravish your beloved in your Holy of Holies.”

[Read the whole article. Ephasis added.]