He loved to explore the world around him and observe its patterns. And as a king who was loaded with wealth, he could sponsor all kinds of writing projects.
The book tells us as much! And even more, the final two chapters of the book name their authors, Agur Prov 30 and Lemuel Prov Brevard Childs, a Hebrew Bible scholar puts it this way:. As Moses is the source [though not the only author] of the Torah , and David is the source [though not the author] of the book of Psalms , so is Solomon the father of the wisdom tradition in Israel… The connection of the Song of Songs to Solomon in the Hebrew Bible sets these writings within the context of wisdom literature.
King Solomon would have been the royal sponsor responsible for aggregating and presenting this wisdom in the finished works we see in Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Actually, it's not only found in the Song of Songs, but the book of Proverbs has a number of poems celebrating the passion and physical intimacy between a man and woman see Prov The imagery and language of this poem is very similar to what you find in the Song of Songs, which should not surprise us.
Again, Brevard Childs puts it this way:. Another noticeable feature of this book is the pervasive use of garden imagery. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices Song This book is simply permeated with images and scenes of garden love, as the lovers chase and play and embrace each other in poem after poem.
What is going on here? The garden of Eden is an image of human love—relationships as they were meant to be. Hebrew Bible scholar Tremper Longman, author of an excellent commentary on the Song of Songs, fashions this idea in the following:. What is a book like the Song of Songs doing in the Bible? Without the Song we would be left with only spare and often negative words about a reality that is crucial to the human experience: love and sex.
God in his wisdom has spoken through the poet of the Song to both encourage and warn us about the unquenchable power of love and desire. The Song is a divine affirmation of love and an acknowledgement of the pain that often accompanies it. The Song of Songs is a unique book in the Bible that offers a unique gift. This book of Israelite love poetry lets us peer back into Eden, and we find there an ideal that very few people ever truly experience.
In this way, the poems both affirm human love, but also show how it is itself only a pointer to something more grand and more sublime. Who is the author of life and human experience? She explains that she has a dark complexion because her family sends her to work in the vineyards. She searches for her lover, comparing him to a wandering shepherd, and the chorus encourages her to follow the flocks to his tent. The lovers lie on a couch together.
He describes verdant and fertile surroundings. The maiden calls herself a rose and a lily, covered by the shade of her beloved, a fruit tree. She compares her beloved to a lively gazelle that arrives to take her away during spring when the plants are budding. The maiden boasts that the man now pastures his flocks of sheep among her lilies. While in bed, the maiden dreams that she is searching the city streets for her lover and that she finds him and takes him home. She envisions a lavish wedding procession, in which her happy bridegroom appears as King Solomon.
He calls for her to come down from the mountain peaks to be with him. The maiden bids the wind to blow on her garden and invites the man into the garden. Once our Sherlockian brains come across the children playing with a soda can in Shalimar, Virginia, we realize that they are singing a song of Solomon. Singing is more emotional than talking, and songs not only tell a story, but they tell it with emotion. In this way, Song of Solomon is not just your standard novel.
It does more than a novel. It sings. It stirs the emotional boef bourguignon of human experience. By following the Song of Solomon, Milkman finds himself. Song of Solomon is also the name of the last book in the Old Testament, and, boy, does it have the scholars stumped. The Biblical Song of Solomon tells the story of romantic love between a man and a woman, and it celebrates sexual love, telling the story of courtship and consummation.
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