Song of Songs 1


Song of Songs 1 is the first chapter of the "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon", a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book is one of the Five Megillot, a group of short books, together with Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, within the Ketuvim, the third and the final section of the Hebrew Bible. Jewish tradition views Solomon as the author of this book, and this attribution influences the acceptance of this book as a canonical text. Song of Songs 1 contains the book's superscription, songs of the main female characters, and the opening song of the male character.

Text

The original text is written in Hebrew language. The chapter is divided into 17 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, including the Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis.
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus.

Structure

The Modern English Version (MEV) divides this chapter as follows:
  • = Introduction
  • a = The Woman
  • b = Friends of the Woman
  • = The Woman
  • = Friends of the Woman
  • = The Man
  • = Friends of the Woman
  • = The Woman
  • = The Man
  • = The Woman
The New Catholic Bible and Jerusalem Bible treat verses 2-4 as a "prologue". Richard Hess, on the other hand, treats verses 1:1-2:7 as a "prologue".

Superscription (1:1)

A superscription in a biblical book functions like the title page of a modern book, containing information about the genre, author, and sometimes also the subject matter and the date of the book.

Verse 1

This verse is a detached description of the book's content, containing two phrases: "the song of songs" and "which is Solomon's".
  • The "song of songs" : The form of the words indicates a superlative statement as the "Greatest of Songs", but can also denote "a single poem composed of many poems".
  • "Song" in noun form appears only here in this book, out of 166 times in the Hebrew Bible.
  • "Which is Solomon's" : can have the interpretation that Solomon is the author; the book is dedicated to Solomon; or it was merely a 'part of royal holding'.
  • "Solomon" is mentioned twice in this chapter ; Solomon's name also appears in two other passages, a total of seven times in the whole book.

Female: Longing for her lover (1:2–7)

This section is the first part of the Prologue, as described by Hess, containing the description of the lovers' first coming together and intimacy. The speaker is a woman as definitely established in verse [|5] from the adjectival form shehora.
Verses 2–4 contains a 'romantic soliloquy' of a woman about her lover, with two distinctive word-patterns: "your_love more_than_wine" and "they love you".
The first appearance of the first word-pattern is a part of a chiastic structure :
The second chiastic structure of the same word-pattern could be found in verse [|4]. The word for the noun "love" is plural, indicating more that one romantic act, so here "lovemaking" is a better rendering than a simple word "love".
One Hebrew word becomes the second word-pattern " love you" which is used 'twice as the last word of a tricolon' in verses 3 and 4. The root verb "love" is used seven times in the whole book and always translated in Greek using the same verb 'agapaō' in Septuagint (LXX).

Verse 3

  • "The virgins" : from the root word ‘ălmā, which is only used seven times in the whole Hebrew Bible, twice in this book, none denies the possibility of the interpretation of "virgins", some even suggest it, but the most certain meaning is "unmarried women who are, or shortly will be, sexually mature".

Verse 4

  • "You": masculine singular, referring to "the Beloved".
  • "You": feminine singular, referring to "the Shulamite".

Verse 5

The phrase "daughters of Jerusalem" is introduced as one of the three identifiable speaking voices and principal characters in this chapter, other than the woman, who speaks until verse 7, and the man, whom the woman talks about in 1:2-4 and 7.

Verse 6

  • "My mother's sons": suggesting her "full brothers", who seem to assume responsibility for the woman, a common practice in patriarchal societies, especially with no mention of her father in the whole book. The woman's mother is mentioned in five places, whereas the man's mother is mentioned once and one mention of Solomon's mother.

Verse 7

  • "Noon": in warm climates, such as in Palestine, is a time for 'rest and repose', and a convenient occasion for 'an amorous tryst'.

Male: Response with invitation and praise (1:8–11)

Hess notes the distinct structure of the verses containing the male's response in term of the syllable count for the lines in each one:
  • Verse 8: 11, 6, and 12
  • Verse 9: 7 and 6
  • Verse 10: 8 and 6
  • Verse 11: 7 and 6
It is clear that verse 8 is structurally out of sequence among these verses and different in the content as well: verse 8 provides the answer to the female's prior question, whereas verses 9–11 focus on her beauty.

Verse 8

All three finite verbs in this verse have the woman as the subject, and the second-person feminine singular form is used for "you" or "your". The structure of this verse duplicates the woman's question and plea of verse 7. MEV applies this verse to the "Friends of the woman".

Verse 9

The man calls his lover, "my love" a specific term of endearment for women that is used 9 times in the book. The masculine form of the same root word to call the man is used in a parallel construction with "my beloved" in Song 5:16.

Female: Her lover as fragrance (1:12–14)

In these three verses, the woman describes her lover in the first line and their relationship in the second line. The second word in each of the verses—the king, the myrrh, the henna—are the only words preceded by the definite article הַ in this section, indicating their identification with one another.

Verse 12

Verse 14

  • "Camphire" or "Henna" from Arabic: . This small shrub produces "clusters of white and yellow blossoms with a powerful fragrance" and continues to grow in En-gedi area from the ancient time until the modern era, providing an enduring illustration of this verse.
  • Engedi: lit. "spring of the kid"; an "oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea".

Male: Praise of beauty (1:15)

Verse [|15]

In this verse and the following, the lovers exchange a mutual admiration in a parallel fashion:
  • first the man
  • then the woman :
The response of the man comprises seven words, two of which are repeated. The exclamation "you are beautiful" is used most frequently by the man to describe his lover.

Female: Love in paradise (1:16–2:1)

Verses 16–17 focus on the subject of trees, with a closure in verse 2:1 on the subject of flowers, to provide a 'picture of the bed as a spreading growth', using a theme of nature's flora.