Song of Songs
What a joy to begin our mini-winter break at A Vivid Life with a reading of David Pawson’s retelling of Song of Songs – one of two books in the Bible where God is not mentioned even once. Then there is the strange-sounding title, Song of Songs. Once again, David Pawson explains that Hebrew writing does not include adjectives. In other words, phrases like the most excellent or fantastic song are impossible. For this same reason, the highest King is known as the King of Kings and the greatest Lord as the Lord of Lords. In the same way, we have Song of Songs.
This book serves as an analogy in which the writer compares the love between a man and a woman to the love between God and human beings. Interestingly, Jewish Rabbis treated it as a very holy book, referring to it as ‘the Holy of Holies’ — even taking their shoes off when they read it. It stopped me in my tracks, and as I meditated upon this custom, I realized afresh that at the heart of going to church, reading our Bible, and even supporting missions lies a precious and personal relationship with the author and creator of it all! If we miss this, we miss everything. For this reason, a summary of the law reads: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.’
The tender love story at the heart of Song of Songs is very simple, yet many people get confused when reading the poetry. Even scholars are divided about the plot. Some believe it involves three people: a shepherd, a King and a girl caught between these two men. Others, like David Pawson, believe the king and the shepherd to be the same person, just like David and even Moses were both king and shepherd. He strengthens his theory by writing a simple outline to help us understand the story better. I would love to share this outline with you today, so close your eyes and enjoy this simple but beautiful story as interpreted by this amazing bible scholar.
******
Solomon had a country estate on the slopes of Mount Hermon. He used it as a retreat from the pressures of being King in Jerusalem. Here he could relax, go hunting and forget for a while that he was the King. On occasions he would lead sheep to find green pasture and water amid the rocky terrain. He might typically travel 15 miles in any one day.
On Solomon’s country estate a tenant farmer had died. The farm passed to his sons, though we don’t know exactly how many there were. There were probably three or four sons and two daughters. One of the daughters is a child; the other is grown up and is the subject of the song. Her life lacks any excitement. Her father divided the estate, giving vineyards to the sons and daughters, but the sons make her do all the work in the house and a lot of the work on the farm. She complains that she had to look after their vineyards so much that she neglected her own. Furthermore, because she had been working outside, her skin had become dark. Although bronzed skin is an attractive feature in our culture, the reverse was true for her – indeed, a bride would be kept out of the sun for 12 months before her wedding. So she was conscious of the fact that her dark looks meant that she would probably remain a slave to her brothers for the rest of her life.
One day she is working in the fields and meets a young man. They enjoy conversation and arrange to meet the next day. After a few occasional meetings, they agree to meet every day. The meetings become the highlight of the day, and after a fortnight they are deeply in love. The one thing that troubles the woman is that she doesn’t know who the young man is. She keeps pestering him, asking which farm he comes from and where re rests his sheep at midday. But he evades her questions and will not tell her who he is.
She is deeply in love with him and he with her, and finally he asks if she will marry him. She has waited years for this! She is overjoyed and says ‘Yes’ immediately. He tells her that he has to leave the next day to return to work in the south in the big city. He leaves her to get ready for the wedding and promises to return.
The next few months are the most exciting of her life. She never thought it would happen, but now at last she is to be married. But she begins to have nightmares. It doesn’t take a very deep knowledge of psychology to interpret her dreams. All her dreams are centred on one theme: ‘I’ve lost him and I’m looking for him.’
One night she dreams that she is running through the streets, looking for her lover. She meets the watchman and asks whether he has seen him. But he hasn’t. She runs around the streets, frantically searching for him. When she finds him, she gets hold of him, drags him back to her mother’s bedroom and tells him she will never let him go. When she awakes, she finds that she is holding the pillow.
Another time she dreams that her lover is at the door and puts his hand through the hole in the door to lift the latch on the inside. But he is unable to open it because it is bolted further down. She is paralyzed and can’t move. She can’t get off the bed, and he’s trying to open the door, and she becomes frustrated. Then his hand disappears and she finds that she can move. She runs to the door and — he’s gone.
The nightmares have a simple explanation: she’s afraid that he won’t come back to marry her. She thinks this in only a holiday flirtation, and her lover won’t keep his promise.
Then one day, she’s out in the fields and notices horses and chariots and a great cloud of dust approaching. She asks her brothers who it is.
The brothers say it is the landlord, King Solomon from Jerusalem, who has come to visit his estates. They get ready to bow down low before the King. She has never seen him, and so she takes a look —only to find that the King in the big chariot is her young man!
Since everyone knows that he has got 60 wives already, she realizes that she must be number 61!
So she leaves the farm and travels south to live in the palace. They are married and she appears at the banquet held to honour her. She sits at the top table next to the King and feels distinctly inferior to the 60 beautiful, fair-skinned queens in their robes all around her.
When a man has more than one woman, each woman begins to feel insecure and asks whether he loves her more than the others. So she asks Solomon if they can go back north. Can’t we just lie on the grass under the trees? Couldn’t we go and live on your estate up there? He explains that because he is the King he must live and reign in Jerusalem. Finally she asks about the beautiful women all around her. She says with a tone of real inferiority, ‘I’m just a rose of Sharon, I’m a lily of the valley.’
We assume that these are beautiful flowers, but in Israel they are tiny little flowers which you would walk on like daisies in a lawn. The lilies of the valley grow in the shadows, and the rose of Sharon is a tiny little crocus that grows on the flat plain next to the Mediterranean Sea.
The King’s reply, that she is a lily among thorns, delights her, for lilies among thorns, by contrast, are the most beautiful flowers in Israel. This lily is white with a graceful form, and this is how her beloved sees her. So she sings a little song to rejoice, and the song is: ‘He brought me into his banqueting hall and his banner over me is love.’
******
A beautiful story indeed! One that I pray you will re-visit this month, enjoying the poetry and rich imagery at the heart of this simple tale. Above all, I pray that it will remind us that being a Christian is being in love with the Lord and singing hymns is singing love songs to the King of Kings.
