Now will I sing to my well-beloved
A song of my beloved touching his vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard
In a very fruitful hill:
And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
The Song of My Beloved
Most people take the Song of Solomon to be an allegory. Indeed, if it is not some kind of figurative poem, it is very difficult to see why it has been included in the divine canon. The most common Christian explanation of the book is that it is a figurative expression of the love between Christ and the Church. There is something to be said for this view, though it is rather difficult to see why it should have been given to Israel so long before Jesus’ advent. A second idea which has gained ground recently is that which sees the book as an idyll about the love between a shepherd and the Shulamite, with Solomon as the villain of the piece. This is an attractive view; but I have difficulty in convincing myself that there really is a third actor, the shepherd, in the book at all.
Finding neither of these views entirely satisfactory, it seemed best to me to try to find help from other parts of Scripture in order to unravel the symbology of the poem – if indeed it were symbolic. While thinking in this way, I happened to be reading Isaiah 5, and read the poem written at the top of this article. This prophecy, obviously that from which Jesus took his parable of the vineyard, seemed to me to be linked with the Song of Solomon – there was the song, the beloved, the vineyard – and, after all, the name given by God to Solomon (Jedidiah) means ‘beloved of the Lord’.
Now, the symbology of the song of Is.5 is partly explained to us. “The vineyard of the LORD of Hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant” (v.7). The vineyard and plants represented the Kingdom of Israel and Judah. The vineyard belonged to the Lord, Who proposed to lay it waste; but in this case who is the singer of the song, who calls the owner of the vineyard his (or her) beloved?
It could be that this singer of Isaiah’s song was a woman, like the Shulamite of the Song of Solomon. Yet, as we continue with the song, the ‘I’ who speaks seems to become identified with the Lord who owns the vineyard. Nevertheless, in the first verse there are two distinct persons, one who sings, and the other who owns the vineyard, to whom the song is sung.
My explanation of this difficulty is that the owner of the vineyard is truly God, Who had the right to destroy it when it did not bear fruit. He is certainly the One Who says, “I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard”(v5) This One Who speaks as ‘I’ in this verse is surely also the ‘I’ of v.1, Who sings the song. Who then could the ‘beloved’ be, who also owned the vineyard, to whom the song was sung? My suggestion is that it was the Davidic King of Israel, who had received the Kingdom from God, and who was supposed to rule that Kingdom on God’s behalf. ‘David’ is the word ‘beloved’; and the Davidic line, the House of David, could be said to have inherited the title of the Lord’s beloved, ruling God’s Kingdom as His representative on earth. Thus the vineyard was God’s; but the Davidic king could also be said to have it as his own, though only as God’s representative. The Davidic king would be in the place of the ‘dresser’ of the vineyard in Jesus’ parable, though Jesus had a different time in mind, a time when the care of the Kingdom had passed from the king to certain Jewish rulers (See Luke 13).
If we now go to the Song of Solomon, bearing these things in mind, we can see a very similar kind of thing there. In ch.8:11 it is stated that Solomon had a vineyard, which he let out to keepers (the vinedressers of another parable of Jesus). Then someone speaks who appears to be greater than Solomon, saying, ”My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand….”
This might be the Shulamite speaking; but in this case it is hardly likely that she would be the Lord of the vineyard, while Solomon was merely the lessee. The more likely thing is that here, as in Is.5, God is speaking and reminding Solomon that though Solomon that a vineyard, it nevertheless really belonged to God, Who permitted Solomon to enjoy the fruits.
The Davidic King and his People
Assuming then that we recognise the vineyard as the Kingdom of Israel, owned by God, but ruled for him by the Davidic kings, can we go on and develop the symbology of the Song of Solomon further? When God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, He looked on the nation as His wife (Ez.16:8). And when, in David’s time, Jerusalem became her capital city, this city became the symbol of the whole Kingdom, people and land – Zion, God’s beloved wife.
When, earlier, Israel had demanded a king, God declared that they had rejected Him from ruling over them. He gave them Saul, but this was by way of compromise, for the man God had destined to be His true representative was not yet ready. When, eventually, Saul proved disobedient, the way was open for God to choose a man in whom He could delight, a beloved man, a man who loved God with all his heart.
Having chosen His king, and brought him to His throne, God chose a place to dwell:
“The LORD hath chosen Zion: he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it” (Ps.132:13&14).
“The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob” (Ps.87:2).
God chose David, beloved of the Lord; and He also chose a city, also beloved, desired by Him. And this city was not beloved simply as a place of bricks and stones; it was beloved as the symbol of the Kingdom of Israel, God’s true wife.
A faithful Davidic king of Israel, conscious of the fact that he was ruling Godts people on Godts behalf, would have realised that his proper part was to love his people as God loved them, to rule them wisely, knowing that he was ‘standing in’ for the Almighty, having God’s wife in his care. Yet the kings were mortal; in time, each would die, and another would take his place. Israel had but one true husband, the eternal God; but on earth this husband was represented by a succession of mortal men.
I now make the suggestion, not, so far as I know, supported by any direct Scriptural evidence, that every time a new king came to the throne in Zion, he renewed God’s covenant with His people by undergoing a symbolic marriage ceremony, in which he acted as God’s representative, taking a new generation of Israelites as God’s symbolic wife.
Thy King cometh unto Thee
I put forward now an extension of this idea, this time supported by some Scripture. This is that the first part of this ceremony was a solemn kingly procession which rode into Jerusalem from the east, acclaimed by the joyful shouts of the people of the city. Ps. 24 may be read in this connexion:
“Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart…. Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.”
The king and his train would climb the hill, go through the gates, and then pass through the city to the holy place, the temple of the Lord, to stand before the Ark of the covenant to make the marriage vows. There are other psalms which seem to be referring to the same incident.
Let us look now at a later prophecy, made when Israel had no king, but was looking for the time when Jerusalem would once more ring with shouts of acclaim for her coming king:
“Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cameth unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly,and riding upon an ass, and upon a’colt the foal of an ass” (Zech.9:9).
Here is a picture of a king riding into Jerusalem, amid the rejoicing shouts of the people of Zion. However, in this case the prophet makes it clear that on this occasion the king was not to be surrounded by the glory and ceremony of the old kingly processions, but was to be lowly, riding on a colt.
I suggested that the king, having entered Jerusalem, proceeded to the . temple, and there made his vows to God, and ceremonially accepted the responsibility of husband to Israel. In doing this, the king would present the people to God, and make sacrifice for them, so that they might be seen as an acceptable and pure bride in His sight. Thus this verse in Zechariah speaks of the king as ‘having salvation’, bringing with him an atonement for the people. The act of God in taking His people as His wife had from the beginning of the national existence of Israel, been an act of redemption by God. But each new generation of Israelites needed to forsake the ‘father’s house’ of the Inheritance of the earth from which they had been born, and to take a new name, the name of their God.
Let us look now at the fulfilment of this nronhecv. when the Lord Jesus rode into Jerusalem at the head of a procession of disciples, to shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David!”.
Bethany, where Jesus was lodging during the last few days of his earthly life, lay on the east of Jerusalem- As he drew near the Mount of Olives, Jesus told two of his disciples to fetch him a colt from a nearby village; and as he rode down the mount (which stood directly east of Jerusalem) people from the city began to pour out of the gate to meet him. This gate could only have been the eastern gate of the ‘Royal Porch’ leading into the Temple court; and so Jesus (like all the ancient Davidic kings before him, if this idea is correct) rode into Jerusalem from the east, from the way of the wilderness, riding up the steep incline of Zion’s hill.
It is manifest that the people who shouted understood some of the implication of Jesus’ act. They cried “Salvation to our God” (Hosanna), and, “Blessed be the king that cameth in the name of the Lord”, that is, Blessed be the King who comes to rule Jerusalem for our God. Matthew records that they called him ‘Son of David’, thus acclaiming him King of the Davidic line, coming to his people in order to redeem them as God had once redeemed Israel out of bondage when He took her as His wife.
Having entered the city, Jesus went directly to the Temple. But here he found only a den of thieves, while the rulers of Israel refused to accept him as King, and told his disciples to be silent. Shortly after, Jesus made true sacrifice for the nation; yet the sacrifice was for others also besides the Jews; and he died outside the camp, and not in the Temple, where the court of the Gentiles had been made into a commercial market, a den of thieves instead of a ‘house of prayer for all nations’.
The House of God in the Kingdom
One more prophecy needs to be looked at, in establishing the pattern from Scripture of a king riding in to his people in Zion from the east. This is the prophecy of the new Temple given in Ezekiel. The angel who showed Ezekiel the Temple eventually brought him to the east gate – “And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east’. This time the King coming into Zion rides not the palanquin of Solomon, nor yet the lowly colt of Jesus, but the chariot of the cherubim. The glory comes into Jerusalem through the eastern gate, proceeds through the inner court of the temple, and fins ‘the house.
“Son of man”, said the Lord, speaking out of the Temple, “the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet…”. God, King of Israel, represented now not by an earthly monarch, but by His own Son, who is yet of David’s line, His ‘beloved’ Son, rides into Zion from the east on the chariot of his glory, to take an undefiled Israel as his bride, and to dwell in the midst of them for ever. From this time, the gate will be shut, and never opened again, for this King will never die, and the vows will never have to be renewed; the people too will not die, to give place to another generation. The name of the city will be always, “The LORD is there”.
Lessons for Today
I have mentioned these two incidents, 1. the presentation of Jesus to Jerusalem, and 2. the approach of Yahweh to Zion in the Kingdom age, in order to establish by circumstantial evidence the fact that Solomon (and other Davidic kings) rode into Jerusalem from the east, and entered the Temple as part of a ceremony of marriage symbolising the union of God and His people. There is, as far as I know, no direct historical evidence that this did take place, except for what is written in the Song of Solomon.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the things following after, I feel justified in suggesting that the Song is a divine portrayal of a historical incident, the occasion when Solomon took Israel as his wife, on behalf of God, which ceremony was celebrated as a coronation – a second coronation, in this particular case, since he had first been hurriedly crowned during the rebellion of Adonijah. This second coronation has, of course, a historical record (1Chr. 29). In this symbolic portrayal, the Shulamite stands for the nation of Israel.
If this point is taken, it does not mean that the Song has no meaning for us today. It may truly stand as a type of the marriage of the Lamb to his Bride at the commencement of the Kingdom age. Nevertheless, the historical application should be made first; and then we may see .clearly enough to make typical lessons. Those who have read some of our previous expositions will recognise this method of interpretation as one which we have consistently tried to follow. If the historical outworking is not first carefully established, then we are left far too much to the mercies of guesswork in interpreting future events. However, if we can see the Song in its historical setting first, we may move with more certainty to the coming of Yahweh to His people as shown in Ezekiel, and, perhaps, throw more light on that disputed time of resurrection and judgment – Sinai or Jerusalem? For all things follow their predetermined pattern, from the beginning of creation; and these patterns are clearly set out for us in the symbols of Scripture.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One