Singing the Song
A song is designed for singing. This may seem a rather obvious truth; yet I have never heard anyone suggest that the Song of Solomon was ever actually sung. Yet originally it must have been composed for singing on some public occasion – for songs are not usually composed for private singing.
The Song of Solomon forms part of the Scripture, and is therefore of a religious nature. Yet it is not a hymn, or anthem, or psalm, and it is hard to imagine it as being a part of the service of the temple, like a psalm. To begin with, the dominant singer in the Song is a woman, and there appears to-be also a chorus included, also to be sung by women. Women singers did not take part in the temple service, so far as we know. If the Song was sung in Israel, it was not as part of a religious feast or temple ritual.
Yet there were occasions when women sang in Israel, when they played instruments, and danced before the Lord. Take Miriam, for example, who went with her maidens to meet Moses and the men of Israel after the Red Sea triumph with timbrels and dancing, singing and answering Moses and the Israelite men. Moses, prophet of the Lord, sang the inspired Song of Triumph, and Miriam the prophetess was inspired to answer with spontaneous song (Ex. 15). Another example is that of Deborah, who sang after the defeat of Sisera.
On both of these occasions the women did not appear to be chanting a rehearsed, previously composed poem; but to be uttering, under inspiration, poetic song. In fact, a good deal of the inspired Word of God now in the Old Testament was in poetic form, and was probably on its first utterance sung spontaneously.
In the last article I made a case for the idea that the Song of Solomon had been composed on the occasion of the coronation of Solomon, and dealt with the love of God for His people Israel, demonstrated to them through His representative the Davidic King of Jerusalem, and in the first instance through Solomon himself. I now make the suggestion that the Song was not only first sung on the occasion of Solomon’s coronation, but was done so spontaneously at that time by a prophetess and her maidens; and that Solomon himself answered the chant, after the pattern of Moses when he sang his song, and was answered by Miriam and her maidens.
Solomon had inherited the poetic and musical genius of his father David, for it is recorded of him that “his songs were a thousand and five” (1Kings 4:32). It would not be surprising to find him leading the chant of the Israelite men on this occasion. Under inspiration, he would answer with divine words as the prophetess chanted, and maybe even dance before the Lord, like David.
It seems reasonable to think of the Song as having been sung spontaneously, because of the earlier examples of the songs of Moses and Deborah. It would not, of course, be necessary for it to have been so spontaneous. It could have been composed previously (by inspiration) either by a prophetess, or by Solomon, and rehearsed before performance on the state occasion of the coronation, and the part of Solomon could have been played by another man. Yet this does not seem to me a likely thing, given the examples already quoted, and the way in which Semitic people compose poetic songs, even today.
My own imaginary picture of the occasion is of Solomon and his entourage coming up to Jerusalem from the road to the east, the road which came from the wilderness. Solomon would be riding in a palanquin (‘bed’ in the A.V.) and surrounded by his valiant men (Song 3:6 & 7). When the procession reached the Mount of Olives, Solomon descended and mounted a royal mule (his feet having stood that day on the Mount) and rode slowly down into the valley outside the walls of the city. Meanwhile, out of the east gate danced a joyous group of maidens, carrying timbrels and other instruments, while all the people of the city crowded on the walls, and shouted when they saw the king approaching.
Down in the Kedron valley the two processions would meet – and the prophetess would begin her song, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth..” while Solomon descended and chanted his responses, a moment of high ecstasy and solemn meaning; Solomon, the Shulamite, and the Israelites around knowing that eternal things were being shown in pattern, and that Solomon spoke as God Himself, while the Shulamite typified the virgin daughter of Zion.
And so the Song, once sung, would be recorded and put with other sacred literature, to be used again when a new king presented himself to Zion.
The Shulamite- Land and People
The Song is largely composed of similes, descriptions, metaphors, etc.,describing in turn the Shulamite and Solomon. A reading of some of these similes is enough to make one realise that the descriptions are not basically pictorial. That is, the words used to describe the characters are not meant to evoke a word-picture of the person. Teeth hardly look like shorn sheep, nor temples like pieces of a pomegranate, nor does a woman look like an enclosed garden. It is always the idea behind the imagery which is important, rather than its visual impact.
Underlying most of this imagery is the idea of fruitfulness. For example, the verse which speaks of teeth being like shorn sheep adds, “Whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them” (4:2). This phrase adds nothing to the visual imagery, but it does add to the total picture of a very fruitful land which the Song conveys.
Here lies the key to the imagery of the Shulamite. The picture conveyed by the descriptions is of a very fruitful, beautiful land; a land of milk and honey, overflowing with fruits and spices, wines, honey, flowers, sheep and goats; a land scattered with beautiful cities, having noble towers and walls. The Shulamite is dark, like the warm brown earth, but as beautiful as the tents which pitch over it, the tents of Kedar.
Almost all the imagery is of the earth; and we recall how often in the prophets, in Jesus’ parables, in the Psalms, Israel is likened to a tree, or a vineyard, or a plant, or even to sheep and goats. From the divine point of view, a people is a living creation belonging to the land, growing out of it, being (if righteous) fruitful, fulfilling their proper destiny before God; if not, having to be cut down, because they “cumber the ground” God’s ground, His earth out of which He created man – and to which man returns.
In these days we hardly like to think of ourselves as belonging to the earth, growing out of it, indissolubly linked to it as much as a tree is linked to its patch of earth. We like to think of ourselves as free, able to fly in the air, to wander where we will. But at basic root we are just as dependent on the earth as the smallest weed, and have as much right to be ‘free’ as has the pest we kill so freely with our ‘many inventions’.
The Shulamite is the nation of Israel, an Israel given by God a particular plot of earth on which to grow, a plot which was then closely linked to it, both land and people being parts of the ‘Kingdom of God’. The cities built by Israel were part of the kingdom, and the city Jerusalem had been chosen by God Himself; there a temple would be erected by Solomon which would be God’s throne on earth. The symbology of the Shulamite bears all of this imagery – she is God’s kingdom, God’s city-state.
I said earlier that the imagery did not convey a visual image of a woman and yet this imagery is visually evocative very much so, but the pictures conjured up in the mind speak of a land rather than of a person. Those who heard the Song, and knew the land of Israel, must have been forcefully moved by the pictures which followed one another like the turning of a kaleidoscope. The fishpools of Heshbon, the tower of David, the noble top of Amana, the spice-gardens, beautiful Tirzah, and so on – we, who have never lived in the land, and certainly not then, when it must have been breathtakingly beautiful, can hardly enter into much of the descriptions; though the picture of the Shulamite as “she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” may raise a chord in us, for these are part of our common experience.
This beautiful imagery is surely not meant to be analysed in a detailed way. The Song has suffered much from having types drawn from the minutest detail. My belief is that the picture is meant to convey ideas rather than small typological lessons, and if we try to transfer each detail of every word-picture into a tidy idea, appealing to the rather prosaic Western mind, the real spirit of the book, with its land-symbology, will vanish like dew on a hot summer’s morning.
Solomon – Beloved Son
I have said that Solomon in this Song is the beloved son of God, ruling God’s land for his Father, cherishing the woman Israel on God’s behalf. Some find it difficult to think of Solomon in this ideal way, since Scripture shows how imperfect he became in after life. Yet we have the record of the Spirit saying that Solomon was beloved of God, and was given a name by Him to show it (2 Sam.12:25). If, as I believe, this song was sung at his (second) coronation, it was early in his life, before he had grown corrupt, and when he had been chosen by God out of David’s sons to sit on beloved David’s throne, at a time when he was humble enough to ask God to favour his people rather than himself.
Yet though this king is Solomon, he is preeminently Solomon as the beloved son of David, as God’s adopted son, that is, Solomon as a type rather than as a person. The Song, catching him at this time, at the best time in his life, records for ever things concerning the King which were certainly only perfectly fulfilled by the Lord Jesus (or, rather, will only be perfectly fulfilled, for I believe that the action of the book is prophetic of the future).
The picture presented in the Song is of a king enjoying the fruitfulness of his land, walking in its gardens and vineyards, lying safely asleep in its cities, looking down from its hills, eating its fruits; and, in return, receiving love and homage. When the king sat at table, the Shulamite says that “my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof”; that is, the scent of ointment which filled the room as he ate had come from his land, grown in its valleys. And she declares, “he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts”; if we look quickly at 8:10 we can see that breasts are likened to towers; and so we have the picture of Solomon lying safely within the city of Zion, guarded by the watchful towers of David, like an infant sleeps safely at its mother’s breast (1:12,13).
It is interesting to see how a certain amount of the language seems to regard the Shulamite as mother (besides sister and spouse). Another example is seen in 8:5, “I raised thee up under the apple tree”. This kind of language becomes immediately understandable when we think of the Shulamite as Zion; for Zion is seen in other Scriptures as both mother and bride of the king – as of all her sons. Is.54, for example, sees Zion as a fruitful mother, but Is.62 sees her as a bride – a bride married by her sons.
In Israel from the time of David a succession of kings were born out of Zion, and later married her; similarly, in the age to come a multitude of kings who were once born of Jerusalem, mother of us all, will take her as bride. In the later part of Is. 62 there is a picture of a new kingly procession going up a new-made highway, to enter the gates of Zion bearing salvation.
The march through the Gates
In different parts of the Song there are allusions to historical events which we propose to look at in the next article. In other parts, the Shulamite appears to be performing a dance with her maidens. In the last chapter the Shulamite (who only watches Solomon’s first approach to the city) joins him, and they ascend the hill together – “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?”. Then we imagine that the procession passes through the gates, for the imagery becomes mainly concerned with walls, doors and towers.
The final words sound something of an anti-climax. “Solomon had a vineyard…”. Why bring the vineyard in at this point? Why not have some kind of ending, a ‘happy ever after’ ending, with the couple in joyous communion? If this had been an uninspired poem sung at a coronation, some kind of ending like this would have been essential as a climax. But, of course, there was no happy ending to Solomon’s story, and so one could not be divinely written into the text. Solomon did not continue to cherish his bride; instead, he made affinity with strange women, and neglected his true wife. And so the record stops here, to be finished many years later by Solomon’s own son, a sorry ending – “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof” (Matt.21:43).
Yet this sorry ending could not be prophesied in the Song, which has a fuller meaning than that which applied in Solomon’s day, and stands as a type of an eternal marriage. And so the Song ends abruptly, in this odd way, as if to say, “There’s more to it, but not now”. And so there is in truth, for we still look for Zion’s king to come up from the wilderness, leading his beloved.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One