Did I Just Open the Wrong Book?

Passage: Song of Solomon 1

Song of Solomon is a book of the Bible I don’t enjoy reading. Seriously. I have an easier time reading about God’s judgment in Jeremiah; about human brutality in Judges; about the futility of the human condition in Ecclesiastes. Song of Solomon switches gears so fast I get whiplash. It just doesn’t seem to fit. It’s too…mushy.

In the history of biblical interpretation there have been others who share my discomfort. There is at least one school of thought that suggests that Song of Solomon is one big metaphor for God’s love for his people. To read it otherwise, they say, is to venture into territory unfit for self-respecting Bible readers. Of course there is also a long tradition of ascetic and puritanical Christianity that maintains that romantic love and sexual desire are evil. The two theories seem to support each other. In general we don’t like to mix sex and religion, and Song of Solomon threatens to blur the lines.

However, there is a way to read Song of Solomon that both legitimizes the sentiments it expresses and defends its place in the canon. It starts with recognizing that sexual love and desire are God-created gifts that we were made to enjoy. Song of Solomon celebrates the natural longing and desire that marriage was designed to fulfill. Husbands and wives should feel for each other the way the “lover” and “beloved” of the book obviously do. Ideally, husbands and wives should feel that way about each other long after the hormone-charged days of courtship and early marriage have passed. There’s nothing better, say the actors in this romance, than to be united for life with someone you’re crazy about.

That being said, those who claim Song of Solomon is a metaphor for God’s relationship with his people aren’t off the mark, either. The Bible consistently uses romantic, even marital, language to describe God’s love and longing for humanity. God is described as a lover; the unfaithfulness of God’s people compared to the infidelity of a wayward partner; the church referred to as “the bride of Christ.” How do we reconcile all these ideas?

The most intimate union we can imagine is the sexual union of husband and wife. It’s the closest two people can be. Moreover the physical intimacy enjoyed by a married couple is really an expression of their emotional and spiritual intimacy. They have devoted their lives to one another. They have committed to being fully open and vulnerable to each other. They are connected in an exclusive, one-of-kind way that, ideally, they will know with no other person. It doesn’t get any closer.

The intimacy that God desires with us and that we are created to desire with God runs even deeper. Marriage is the closest comparison because we don’t know any closer. God knows us more clearly and loves us more purely than the closest of lovers.

Song of Solomon introduces the image of two people who are wholly devoted to each other and long to be connected in the most intimate way. This is a kind of relationship to be desired and sought after. It’s also just a shadow of the wholeness and the fulfillment we will know perfectly when we meet Jesus, the lover of our souls, face-to-face.