The Kingdom · Not dated
Chapter 21
The Song of Songs
Set 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 Yah.
For parents
This chapter retells a love song between a woman and the man she loves, choosing its gentler lines. It speaks of kisses (Song of Songs 1:2), an embrace (2:6) and a mother who conceived and gave birth (3:4; 8:5), and in one night scene the city’s watchmen beat and bruise the woman and take her cloak (5:7). The song’s lines about the body and desire are said softly or left out.
One book of the Bible opens with its title: “The Song of songs, which is .” In it a woman and the man she loves speak to each other, and now and then friends join in.
She is the first to speak:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,for your love is better than wine.The scent of your oils is lovely;your name is like oil poured out,and that is why the young women love you.Take me along with you. Let’s hurry.The king has brought me into his rooms.
Then the friends join in. “We will be glad and happy because of you,” they say. “We will praise your love more than wine!”
“They are right to love you,” she says.
Then she speaks to the women of :
I am dark, but I am lovely,you daughters of Jerusalem,like ’s tents,like Solomon’s curtains.Don’t stare at me because I am dark,because the sun has burned me.My mother’s sons were angry with me;they made me look after the vineyards.My own vineyard I haven’t looked after.
And she asks the one she loves:
Tell me, you whom my soul loves,where you graze your flock,where you rest them at noon.Why should I be like someone veiledbeside your companions’ flocks?
“If you don’t know, loveliest among women,” he answers, “follow the tracks of the sheep, and let your young goats graze by the shepherds’ tents.”
She sings of him, the one she calls “my beloved”:
My beloved is to me a cluster of flowersfrom the vineyards of .
“Look, you are beautiful, my love,” he says. “Look, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves.”
“Look, you are beautiful, my beloved,” she answers, “and pleasant too! And our couch is green and leafy.”
“The beams of our house are ,” he says, “and our rafters are fir trees.”
“I am a rose of ,” she says, “a lily of the valleys.”
“My love among the young women,” he answers, “is like a lily among thorns.”
She says:
Among the young men, my belovedis like an apple tree among the trees in the woods.I sat down in his shade with great delight,and his fruit tasted sweet to me.He brought me to the banquet hall;his banner over me is love.Give me raisins to make me strong,and apples to refresh me,for I am faint with love.His left hand is under my head,his right arm around me.
And she says to the daughters of Jerusalem:
Promise me, daughters of Jerusalem,by the or the deer of the field,that you won’t stir up or awaken loveuntil it so desires.
She hears him coming:
That’s the voice of my beloved!Look, he is coming,leaping on the mountains,skipping on the hills.My beloved is like a roe deer or a young deer.Look, he stands behind our wall,looking in at the windows,glancing through the .
She goes on:
My beloved spoke to me. He said,“Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.For look, the winter is past.The rain is over and gone.Flowers are showing on the earth.The time for singing has come,and the ’s voice is heard in our land.The fig tree is ripening its green figs,and the vines are in blossom, giving off their scent.Rise up, my love, my beautiful one,and come away.”
He says:
My dove in the cracks 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.Catch for us the foxes,the little foxes that raid the vineyards,because our vineyards are in blossom.
She answers:
My beloved is mine, and I am his.Among the lilies he grazes.Until the day is cool and the shadows flee away,turn, my beloved,and be like a roe deer or a young deeron the mountains of .
She sings of looking for him at night:
At night on my bedI was looking for the one my soul loves.I looked for him, but I didn’t find him.I will get up now and go around the city.In the streets and the squaresI will look for the one my soul loves.I looked for him, but I didn’t find him.The watchmen who walk the city found me.“Have you seen the one my soul loves?”I had barely passed themwhen I found him, the one my soul loves.I held him and would not let him gountil I had brought him into my mother’s house,into the room of the mother who conceived me.
Again she says to the daughters of Jerusalem:
Promise me, daughters of Jerusalem,by the roe deer or the deer of the field,that you won’t stir up or awaken loveuntil it so desires.
Then the song turns to a new sight:
Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke,perfumed with and ,with every spice the merchants sell?Look, it is Solomon’s carriage!Sixty of Israel’s mighty menare around it.They all handle the sword and are skilled in war.Every man has his sword on his thigh,because of fear in the night.
King Solomon made himself a carriageout of wood from .He made its pillars of silver,its floor of gold, its seat of purple cloth,and its inside was laid with lovefrom the daughters of Jerusalem.Go out, you daughters of , and see King Solomonin the crown his mother crowned him withon his wedding day,the day his heart was glad.
He says to her:
Look, you are beautiful, my love.Look, you are beautiful.Your eyes are like doves behind your veil.Your hair looks like a flock of goatscoming down from Mount .Your teeth are like a newly sheared flockthat has come up from the washing;each one has twins,and none has lost a lamb.Your lips are like thread.Your mouth is lovely.Your temples are like a piece of behind your veil.Your neck is like ’s tower, built to store weapons,with a thousand shields hanging on it,all the shields of the mighty men.
Everything about you is beautiful, my love.There is not one spot on you.
She sings of a night when he came to her door:
I was asleep, but my heart was awake.It’s my beloved’s voice! He is knocking:“Open to me, my dear one, my love,my dove, my pure one,for my head is soaked with dew,my hair with the damp of the night.”I have taken off my robe. Do I have to put it on?I have washed my feet. Do I have to get them dirty?My beloved put his hand in through the opening of the latch,and my heart pounded for him.I got up to open the door to my beloved.Myrrh dripped from my hands,liquid myrrh from my fingers,onto the handles of the lock.
I opened the door to my beloved,but my beloved had left and gone away.My heart went out of me when he spoke.I looked for him, but I didn’t find him.I called him, but he didn’t answer.The watchmen who walk the city found me.They beat me; they bruised me.The guards on the walls took my cloak away from me.
Promise me, daughters of Jerusalem,if you find my beloved,to tell him that I am faint with love.
The friends ask her, “How is your beloved better than any other, you loveliest among women? How is your beloved better than any other, that you make us promise this?”
She answers:
My beloved is fair and ,the best of ten thousand.His head is like the purest gold;his hair is thick and raven-black.His eyes are like doves beside the brooks,washed with milk, and set like jewels.
His legs are like pillars of marblestanding on bases of fine gold.He looks like Lebanon,as splendid as the cedars.His mouth is sweetness;yes, he is altogether lovely.This is my beloved, and this is my friend,daughters of Jerusalem.
“Where has your beloved gone, loveliest among women?” the friends ask. “Where has your beloved turned, so that we can look for him with you?”
She answers:
My beloved has gone down to his garden,to the beds of spices,to tend his flock in the gardens and to gather lilies.I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.Among the lilies he grazes.
And he says to her:
You are beautiful, my love, as ,lovely as Jerusalem,awesome as an army with banners.
Once more she says:
Promise me, daughters of Jerusalem,that you won’t stir up or awaken loveuntil it so desires.
The friends ask, “Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?”
And she says:
Under the apple tree I woke you.There your mother conceived you;there she was in labor and gave birth to you.
Set me as a on your heart,as a seal on your arm,because love is as strong as death,and jealousy as cruel as , the place of the dead.Its flashes are flashes of fire,a very flame of the Lord.Many waters can’t quench love,and floods can’t drown it.If a man gave all the riches of his house for love,he would be utterly scorned.
At the end of the song, he calls out:
You who live in the gardens,with friends all around,let me hear your voice!
And she answers:
Come away, my beloved!Be like a gazelle or a young stagon the mountains of spices!