Annotations for Song of Songs
Annotations for Song of Songs
The Egyptian love songs contain the closest parallels from ancient texts to the Song of Songs. The Egyptian songs were composed in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties (c. thirteenth–twelfth centuries BC). Texts include the following:
• Papyrus Harris 500. This is made up of three collections.
Collection A. This is a fairly erotic collection in which a man and woman sing of their love for each other in a series of short songs similar to the Song of Songs.
Collection B. This is a series of songs in which a girl describes how her heart has been ensnared by her beloved.
Collection C. This is another series of songs sung by a female solo, in which she sings of how her heart has belonged to her lover ever since she lay with him.
• The Cairo Love Songs. These were found written on a vase.
A man and woman sing of their love for each other. The man has to cross a river to get to her, and he is carried across as if by magic.
A boy sings songs in which he, in a very adolescent manner, pines to be near the girl of his dreams. For example, he wishes he were a laundryman so that he could touch her clothes.
• The Turin Love Song. This is a curious collection in which a group of trees sing about the love between a young man and woman.
• The Papyrus Chester Beatty I Songs. This papyrus has several kinds of texts, including three love-song collections.
Group A. A man and woman sing of their love to each other. In one song, the man describes the beauty of his beloved in a manner similar to .
Group B. A woman sings of her desire for her beloved to come to her.
Group C. The Nakhtsobek Songs are about a young man who became ensnared in the pleasures of a prostitute. It, like Song of Songs, has three singing parts: a man, a woman and a female chorus. The Nakhtsobek chorus appears to represent the girls of a brothel, who sing of how delightful will be the man’s night with the prostitute. The solo woman represents a prostitute who has enticed the man, and she sings of how boldly she went and took him. The man’s first song tells of how he is captured by the charms of the lady, but in his second song he finds the door to her barred. She will not receive him again until he comes with sufficient payment. The man vows to bring an extravagant number of gifts to ensure that the way to her is always open. In short, the songs tell of how a young man became emotionally and financially enslaved by a prostitute. There is no narrative or drama here, but the songs together form a coherent work that focuses on a single episode in life: the entrapment of a young man by a prostitute.
Song of Songs in similar fashion uses the various singing parts to give us a picture of the lives of a man and a woman. It deals with mature love, not prostitution or adolescent infatuation, but is similar to the Nakhtsobek Songs in structural conception. Individual songs work together to give the audience a coherent, if highly poetic, interpretation of the joy and significance of sexual love. ◆
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Mesopotamia has produced a fair amount of love poetry, but no collections directly analogous to the Egyptian texts or the Song of Songs. Also, the Mesopotamian songs are usually religious, singing about the love affairs of the gods, whereas the Song of Songs and the Egyptian texts are secular. Examples of Mesopotamian love poetry include:
• Songs of the goddess Inanna (Ishtar) and her lover Dumuzi (Tammuz). There are several such songs; two examples are:
“The Woman’s Oath.” Dumuzi and Inanna sing of their love for each other.
“Love by the Light of the Moon.” Inanna, by trickery, persuades her mother Ningal to acquiesce to the sexual union of Inanna and Dumuzi.
• “Love Lyrics of Nabu and Tashmetu.” A song of the love between the god Nabu and his consort, Tashmetu. It makes heavy use of the garden metaphor for the female body, as does Song of Songs. ◆
Babylonian love poem, eighteenth century BC: “My beloved knows my heart / My beloved is sweet as honey / She is as fragrant to the nose as wine / The fruit of my feelings.”
The Schøyen Collection, Oslo and London, MS 2866, www.schoyencollection.com
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Let him kiss me. A kiss on the lips was a passionate expression throughout the Near East, though Egyptians touched noses instead. wine. The comparison of the man’s love to wine is analogous to a stock metaphor of Egyptian love poetry, in which lovemaking is compared to pomegranate wine or to beer (an analogy used by a female singer in Papyrus Harris 500 in reference to her beloved’s caresses). The Egyptians knew wine, but they favored beer. By contrast, Israelites preferred wine, and no word for beer occurs in Biblical Hebrew.
Dark am I. In the ancient world, fair skin was preferred to dark skin for class reasons (rather than racial reasons). Since the vast majority of the people were yeoman farmers, dark skin was common, whereas fair skin was exotic; sun-darkened skin marked one as a peasant rather than a member of the aristocracy. A male singer in Papyrus Chester Beatty I declares that his love is “shining, precious, white of skin”—more in accord with ancient standards of beauty than is the lady of Song of Songs. Kedar. Among the most powerful of the northern Arabian Bedouin tribal groups; they are tied to the genealogy of Ishmael in . Their tents consisted of a three-sided pavilion made of animal skins or woven fabric. The black color would have come from the use of black goat hair.
like a veiled woman. This assertion has prompted a number of interpreters to suggest on the basis of that the woman does not want to look like a prostitute. More likely she refers to disguising herself so that she can covertly be with her lover.
the tents of the shepherds. The shepherd motif has clear parallels in ancient Near Eastern poetry; e.g., in a Middle Babylonian text about the goddess Ishtar and her lover, Tammuz, the goddess refers to Tammuz as a shepherd.
I liken you, my darling, to a mare. The comparison of the woman to a mare illustrates how a search for historical explanations can mislead. Recently, some interpreters have suggested that this line is to be elucidated by an ancient military tactic of sending an estrus mare out among the chariots of an opposing army with the intent that the horses’ excitement would throw the enemy’s battle lines into confusion. In fact, there is no suggestion of a battle or of excitement of that kind here. The real point seems to be simply that she is beautifully adorned in jewelry (v. ) in a manner reminiscent of the extravagant trappings of the pharaoh’s horses. In Egyptian artwork, such as in the tomb of Tutankhamun, one can see horses with elaborate bridles and headgear.
henna blossoms. Henna is a flowering shrub, Lawsonia inermis L., with fragrant white blossoms. The leaves and twigs produce a red, yellow or orange dye that was used to color the hair and other parts of the body.
Your eyes are doves. Doves figure prominently on seals and other iconography as a symbol of lovemaking or seduction. They are sometimes understood as messengers of love. A Syrian cylinder seal from c. 1750 BC shows a goddess disrobing before a god as a sign of her willingness to engage in sexual procreation, and doves hover over her head. Similar uses of the dove can be found in artwork from Assyria, Mitanni and classical Greece. This may tell us that the phrase “your eyes are doves” means that her eyes are sexually attractive and provocative.
rose of Sharon. While the exact flower referred to here is unknown, a likely choice would be the Polyanthus narcissus, which grows in the hills and moist valleys of the Sharon Plain. They have been found as offerings in Hellenistic tombs in Egypt.
Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest. Some interpreters argue that the apple was unknown in ancient Israel and so translate this as “apricot.” However, apples were known both in Mesopotamia and in the classical world, and there is no reason to deny that Israelites knew of the fruit. One aspect of this simile is obvious: all other men are forest trees in the woman’s eyes, but her beloved is an apple tree, i.e., a tree that gives delicious fruit in contrast to a barren, ordinary tree. Apples were also understood as aphrodisiacs in Assyrian incantations.
his banner over me be love. The translation of the Hebrew word degel as “banner” is uncertain; this phrase may be better translated “his intent toward me be love.” In either case, setting a standard as a symbol of possession or expressing intent to carry out an action arrives at the same objective: to make love to his beloved.
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. The same language is used in the Papyrus Chester Beatty I songs, where the Egyptian girl sings to her beloved, “O that you came to your sister swiftly, / like a bounding gazelle in the wild.” The image brings out her vision of the man as both powerful and graceful. Gazelles and does are often portrayed as the companions of the goddess of love in ancient Near Eastern art. gazing through the windows. Carved ivories found in excavations of the Iron Age levels at Samaria and Nimrud include the motif of “the woman at the window.” This may be associated with the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who was identified with a cult of sacred prostitution (see the adulterous woman’s spying through the window in ; see also ). In this case, however, it is the impatient man who periodically glances through the window to see when his lover will be ready to admit him.
The season of singing has come. The ancient versions took the Hebrew in v. to mean, “the season of pruning has come,” unlike the NIV’s “season of singing.” The issue is the meaning of the word zamir, which can mean either “song” or “pruning.” Some modern interpreters say that it cannot mean “pruning” since the song has already indicated that it is spring; they argue that the pruning was done in winter. The term zamir (“pruning”) also appears in the Gezer Calendar, a small Hebrew inscription on a piece of limestone. It dates to around 925 BC and appears to be a schoolboy’s writing exercise that describes the agricultural year in ancient Israel. This inscription, compared to , suggests that the Israelites continued pruning into the springtime, which would invalidate the argument that there was no pruning in spring.
Catch for us the foxes. The image of the foxes is highly ambiguous and has given rise to an enormous number of speculative interpretations (that the foxes are lustful boys, that the foxes represent the cunning of young lovers, etc.). Ancient parallels may be of help to us. As this text does, Aristophanes asserts that foxes commonly get into the vineyards and eat the grapes (Knights 1075–77). Similar comments can be found in Plato (Republic 365c) and Aristotle (History of Animals 488b.1). Images on classical pottery indicate that fox hunting was not a serious sport but more of a game for young people; perhaps they made play of the necessary task of chasing foxes from the vineyards. If so, the appeal simply speaks of one of the joys of springtime for young people and is not meant to be grist for imaginative interpreters.
lilies. May be lotus flowers, which were symbols of fertility and sensuality in Egypt and Canaan.
There are an enormous number of interpretations of this difficult text, in which the woman seeks her beloved in the city streets, encounters the guards and then suddenly finds her beloved. From a literary standpoint, the woman’s action is a “quest,” a tale in which the hero goes out in search of some prized possession. The closest parallel in the Bible to this text is personified Wisdom’s metaphoric search for a young man who will embrace her teachings (; ). The most famous quest of ancient Near Eastern literature is that of Gilgamesh, who sought the plant of eternal youth after the death of his friend Enkidu. Near Eastern myths do have stories of goddesses who went in search of their perished lovers in the netherworld (Ishtar seeking Tammuz, or Anat seeking Baal). A famous quest in classical mythology is that of Orpheus, who went to Hades in hopes of bringing back his wife, Eurydice. Against all these parallels, the woman of the Song of Songs is not seeking someone who will accept her teachings, and this passage does not deal with death. Still, the fact that it is the woman who seeks the man (rather than the reverse) suggests that she is the central figure in the Song of Songs.
This section describes the coming of the woman (in v. the word “this” in “Who is this . . . ?” is feminine and therefore designates a woman). Her arrival is most extravagant, as clouds of incense go up with her procession, and she herself is perfumed.
perfumed with myrrh and incense. Peoples of the ancient world highly valued fragrances, perfumes and anointing oils. A curious Egyptian banqueting custom was to imbed a cone of wax with fragrances and then place the wax on top of the head. As the evening progressed, body heat would melt the wax, which, running down the sides of the head, would release its aroma. Apart from the fact that the fragrances were pleasing, they also served hygienic or health-related purposes; e.g., anointing the scalp with oils killed lice. Most perfumes and incenses came from plant sources such as frankincense, myrrh, nard, saffron, aloes and calamus. None of these is indigenous to Palestine; they had to be imported from Iran, Arabia, India and elsewhere. For this reason, perfumes were extravagantly expensive (see ). Fragrances were obtained in a variety of ways, depending on the nature of the plant source (be it a root, flower, bark secretion or something else), but often the raw material was either distilled or in some way pressed or crushed.
Numerous interpretations of this text have been proposed, but it appears most likely that this is an Israelite wedding scene in which the bride is being carried in a litter or palanquin (not a “carriage,” v. ) to the wedding ceremony, where the groom stands wearing a ceremonial crown or garland (v. ). The Talmud indicates that brides came to a wedding in a palanquin, and that both the bride and groom wore ceremonial crowns (in the Babylonian Talmud see Sotah 49a)—until such practices were interrupted by the wars against Rome. The “sixty warriors” (v. ) are probably the friends of the groom serving as escorts or honor guards for the bride (as at Samson’s wedding). The text indicates the grandeur of the wedding by elaborating on the exquisite workmanship of the palanquin (vv. ).
A song that describes in detail the beauty of one’s beloved is referred to as the genre of wasf, and the Song of Songs has several such pieces. Here, the man sings of the woman’s eyes, hair, face, neck and breasts before he interrupts the description of her beauty to call for her to come with him (v. ). Such poetry is found also in the Egyptian love songs. For example, in the Papyrus Chester Beatty I texts, a young man sings of his beloved, “Lovely the look of her eyes, / Sweet the speech of her lips, / She has not a word too much. / Upright neck, shining breast, / Hair true lapis lazuli.” In contrast to the Song of Songs, however, the Egyptian texts use language that is fairly straightforward. The metaphors of the Song of Songs—a neck “like the tower of David” (v. ) or breasts “like twin fawns” (v. )—are both provocative and enigmatic.
Eighteenth-century BC fertility goddess from Mari with a neck like a tower ().
National Museum, Aleppo, Syria/Bridgeman Images
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tower of David. According to the fashion described in the Egyptian Love Songs and depicted in art, a long neck was a characteristic of a beautiful woman. Thus a comparison with a tall, well-built tower serves as a compliment. In addition to the shape, a tower represented the pride and glory of a city. This is the imagery also used for the neck in the Bible (e.g., ). on it hang a thousand shields. The metaphor of a woman’s adorned neck continues by comparing jewels and necklaces to the shields used to decorate a structure (cf. ). In Ezekiel’s lament over Tyre (), he describes how shields were hung on the city walls to add to its beauty ().
In a surprising move, the man describes the woman almost as a goddess. Amana . . . Senir . . . Hermon. The mountains mentioned here are in Lebanon, north of Israel (“Hermon” and “Senir” are actually the same mountain), and they were the highest mountains in the region. The Gilgamesh Epic speaks of the mountains of Lebanon as the throne of the goddess Ishtar. Still, it would not be correct to assume that the man actually is singing to a goddess or that this text is a fragment of a hymn. A modern man might call the woman of his dreams an “angel” and not mean it literally. The words suggest that to the man, the woman in all her beauty is both powerful and aloof. lions’ . . . leopards. These animals are often the companions of goddesses, particularly Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess of love. In Egypt Hathor is sometimes portrayed as a lioness, as is Sekhmet.
You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride. Both the use of the term “sister” as a term of endearment and the description of the woman as a garden have parallels in the Egyptian texts. Papyrus Harris 500 has the following lines sung by the woman: “I am your sister, your best one; / I belong to you like this plot of ground / That I planted with flowers / And sweet smelling herbs.” In these contexts, “sister” is simply an affectionate term analogous to “sweetheart” in English; it is not literal and should not be linked to sibling marriage either in the pharaoh’s household or among the gods (in the Egyptian love poetry, it is clear that the lovers are not related; see also ). The Biblical account is distinctive for describing the woman as a garden that is “locked up.” This suggests that they have not yet consummated their marriage and that she is still a virgin.
These verses are among the most enigmatic and controversial texts in the entire book. A principal issue here is whether or not this text actually describes the sexual union of the man and woman, or whether his departure suggests that they did not have a union. The line “My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening” (v. ) appears to be a euphemism for sexual intercourse. The term “hand” is used in both the Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literature to refer to the male member. It has this significance in (“naked bodies”), (“strength”), as well as in the Qumran Manual of Discipline (1 QS 7:13). “Hand” also has this significance in Sumerian, Ugaritic and Egyptian texts. In the Egyptian Papyrus Harris 500, after the woman declares that she is like a garden for her beloved, she sings, “Pleasant is the canal within it, / which your hand scooped out.” In that text, her body is a garden, the “canal” is her genitals, and his “hand” is his sexual member. The similarity to the language of the Song of Songs is striking. But if sexual union has taken place, what is the meaning of the departure of the man (v. ) and the molestation of the woman by the watchmen of the city (v. )? The departure (like everything else in this passage) is not to be taken literally. The man’s disappearance is probably the woman’s perspective on the event, i.e., the man has been abrupt in his termination of the union and has not given her the kind of intimacy she desires. The violence of the watchmen suggests the violence of the loss of virginity. In Biblical language, a city can be called a “virgin,” meaning that it is securely protected (e.g., ). The watchmen of a city are its protectors, and here represent the woman’s virginity. Despite the metaphoric usage here, the metaphor, as expected, derives from real life: there was a small opening in the door that someone could reach through to get to the latch or lock. If there was a lock, the person would have to reach through with a key.
lilies. The Hebrew word probably refers specifically to the lotus (which is a variety of lily), and the Hebrew word is probably borrowed from Egyptian. Egyptian and Phoenician art regularly portray the lotus in artwork, and a lotus pattern is routinely used for the capitals of Egyptian stone pillars. In Solomon’s temple complex, the column capitals and the great metal “Sea” undoubtedly had a lotus pattern (). The Egyptians considered the lotus a symbol of life, and they made a type of bread from the cluster at the center of the flower. Homer famously sings of the magical power of the lotus in his account of the land of the lotus-eaters (Odyssey 9). In describing his lips as lotuses, she associates him with an object of awe and beauty, and she likely means that his kisses are enchanting and invigorating.
pillars of marble. Now it is the woman’s turn to describe her lover in flamboyant terms. A similar portrayal of perfect physical symmetry can be found in the description of the Babylonian god Marduk in the Enuma Elish creation epic.
My beloved has gone down to his garden. Ancient Israelites placed their settlements on hilltops with the gardens in the valleys below, and someone heading to a garden would naturally go downward. Thus, going down relates to the realities of Israelite life.
You are as beautiful as Tirzah . . . as lovely as Jerusalem. The woman is compared to these two cities, apparently the most magnificent in Israel, Jerusalem to the south and Tirzah to the north. Tirzah. Its ruins are at Tell el-Farʿah. Evidence for settlement is found here from various periods in the Neolithic, the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The city there at the time of Solomon represents a high point in the history of the site. Tirzah in this phase was an elaborately planned urban center with abundant pottery, ashlar (cut stone) construction (see note on ), an offset-inset city wall, a large public place and shrine near the city gate, and a type of house construction not normally seen in Israel. It may have been the administrative center for the district of Ephraim in the time of Solomon. The city may have been sacked during the incursion of Sheshonq (Biblical Shishak, see notes on , ), and it was apparently Jeroboam’s capital city (). Omri laid siege to the city; this resulted in the palace being burned to the ground (). Omri moved the capital to Samaria, and Tirzah declined to insignificance. In the postexilic period it was a ruin. This suggests either that the Song of Songs was composed when Tirzah was in its glory days and a rival to Jerusalem, or that it reflects on the distant past of a once-glorious city.
chariots. This verse is obscure, but it is possible that the chariot, as in the love literature from the ancient Near East, is a metaphor for marriage. When Ishtar proposes marriage to Gilgamesh, she uses the metaphor of the chariot to do so, and in the “Love Lyrics of Nabu and Tashmetu” the man offers to provide a chariot for the woman, and her response indicates that there had been a suggestion of a sexual encounter. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain as to how this metaphor would work among the other difficult elements of this verse (e.g., chariots being plural and modified with the name Amminadab [see ]).
the Shulammite. Since a definite article precedes the name Shulammite, it is probably an epithet, such as “perfect one,” not a personal name. Origin of the name may be based on a connection with the Mesopotamian goddess Shulmanitu or Sala. It is unlikely that the name refers to an inhabitant of Shunem, since the woman is so closely associated with Jerusalem in the Song of Songs. dance of Mahanaim. The meaning of this is disputed, as illustrated by the NIV’s decision to transliterate the Hebrew “Mahanaim” rather than translate it. Dance was certainly well known in ancient Israel, but most of the examples we have refer to women (not men) dancing (see notes on ; ; ). Specific examples include the celebratory dancing of Miriam and the women at the Red Sea (), of Jephthah’s daughter () and of the women who celebrated victories in David’s time (). tells us that women danced at an annual festival at Shiloh. On the other hand, we do have the example of David’s dance (), and there is a clay plaque found at Tell Dan that has a depiction of a man dancing and playing a lute-like instrument. Thus, dancing was not exclusively done by women. In , however, the man seems to be referring to an elaborate dance conducted by two companies of women (“Mahanaim” can be translated “two companies”). The point is that the chorus should not stare at the woman as if she were putting on a show.
the pools of Heshbon. Heshbon was a city in Transjordan, west of the Dead Sea, at a site now called Tell Hesban. The remains of several pools have been found there, although we cannot be sure to which, if any of these, the Song is referring. tower of Lebanon. Location unknown.
the palm . . . clusters of fruit. The date palm was (and remains) a highly valued tree in the Near East. It had many uses (e.g., its fronds were used in weaving baskets), and its fruit is sweet. The tree is sometimes associated with fertility goddesses in ancient artwork, and the clusters of its fruit somewhat resemble a woman’s breast. As such, it here represents the pleasures that the woman gives.
An Egyptian woman holds mandrakes () in her right hand, Amarna, 1335 BC.
Kim Walton. The Neues Museum, Berlin.
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mandrakes . . . their fragrance. Similar to ginseng, the mandrake has a root that can resemble a human form. It produces a pungent odor and can be used as a narcotic. From ancient times, an enormous amount of lore and superstition has been associated with the plant. The fragrance of the fruit of the mandrake was thought to be an aphrodisiac. In Egyptian artwork, women hold the fruit under their noses or the noses of their husbands, apparently as a preparation for love-play. The Cairo Love Songs also allude to the erotic power of the mandrake, as does .
brother. A common term of endearment for a woman to use of her lover in the ancient Near East. Here, however, the woman wishes her beloved actually were her brother so that she could kiss him in public. She does not, and we should not, push the point to absurdity (she would not want to make love to her brother). The main point is simply that she wishes she did not have to hide her affection for him. It appears that in ancient Israel, as in many traditional societies, any public display of affection between man and woman was forbidden, even if they were married. The exception would be a kiss or holding hands among close family members, where it would be understood that no sexual relationship existed. Thus, the woman simply wishes she had more freedom to show how much she loves her beloved. In a somewhat analogous manner, the female singer in the Papyrus Chester Beatty I songs longs to be able to show affection to her “brother,” but she is held back by the watchful eyes of society.
Place me like a seal over your heart. The “seal” was typically a piece of clay with a stamp on it that identified the owner of whatever was sealed (see note on ). The woman’s point is that she has possession of the man’s heart, and no one else should be allowed in. The seal metaphor occurs in both Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature. In an Egyptian song, the wish is expressed for the lover to be a seal ring on his beloved’s finger, and in Mesopotamia it refers to the wearing of a cylinder seal—“you placed him like a seal around your neck.”
Baal Hamon. No place called Baal Hamon (“lord of uproar” or even “husband of a mob”) is known to us, and no effort to identify such a location can be called successful.