song of solomon 1 through 4

Read Song of Solomon 1 through 4 at Bible Gateway.

The Hebrew paragraph divisions:

Son 1:1-4 {p} The bride’s love for the bridegroom
Son 1:5-8 {p} The dark-skinned bride seeks pasture for her goats with her bridegroom’s flock
Son 1:9-14 {s} The bridegroom + bride dwell on each other’s lovely traits
Son 1:15-2:7 {s} The bridegroom praises his bride, and the bride responds with her own praise
Son 2:8-13 {s} The voice of the bridegroom in the spring, calling the bride to come away with him
Son 2:14 {s} The bridegroom longs to be with his bride in a private place
Son 2:15-17 {s} They rejoice that they have found each other
Son 3:1-5 {s} The bride dreams of seeking and finding the bridegroom
Son 3:6-8 {s} Solomon’s couch comes up from the wilderness, guarded by the valiant of Israel
Son 3:9-11 {s} The glory of Solomon on his wedding day
Son 4:1-7 {s} The bridegroom extols the bride’s beauty
Son 4:8-11 {s} The bridegroom pours out the love of his heart to the bride
Son 4:12-5:1 {s} The bridegroom compares his bride to a secret garden, which together they unlock

When we ended in 1 Kings yesterday, we read that Solomon had spoken 3000 proverbs and written 1005 songs (1 Kin 4:32). This song is the song of songs, the capstone of all his songs. The Jewish scholars say that this song is the 5 songs over the 1000, for the Hebrew paragraph divisions divide the song into five strong themes (which we will look at tomorrow).

The scriptures contain three books written by Solomon (along with Psa 72 and 127 included in the book of Psalms). Tradition has it that Solomon wrote the Song while young, to celebrate his wedding; that the Proverbs were compiled in the prime of his life, and Ecclesiastes when he was old and full of days.

The bride, in the Song, is called the Shulamite (Son 6:13) in my Bible, which is Strong’s H7759, its root, interestingly enough, is the same as shalom, and Solomon. It means, roughly, “daughter of peace,” just as Solomon can be understood to mean “prince of peace.” The footnotes in my Bible say she is a Palestinian young woman. Um, NKJV Bible translators, is your bias showing? (Yes, considering there were no such people as “Palestinians” in the ancient world, and are today a fabricated people group, Jordanians who were renamed Palestinians when Israel inherited the land.) I searched the Hebrew text for the identity of the “daughter of peace,” and found something glaringly obvious:

“I have compared you, my love, to my filly among Pharaoh’s chariots.” Son 1:9

Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and see King Solomon with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day of the gladness of his heart. Son 3:11

Now Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and married Pharaoh’s daughter; then he brought her to the City of David until he had finished building his own house, and the house of the Lord, and the wall all around Jerusalem. 1 Kin 3:1

The Shulamite is none other than the Egyptian princess, the wife of his youth, whom he received in marriage in a treaty with Pharaoh, which apparently included chariots as well. According to Ussher, Solomon married his Egyptian princess in 1014 BC. If she was Egyptian, it might explain her dark skin (Son 1:5),  especially, since Egypt and Nubia (Ethiopia) were aligned, if there were Nubian princesses in Pharaoh’s harem who had borne him children. Even Moses, prince of Egypt, had a Nubian princess for wife! (Num 12;1; Josephus explains the circumstances surrounding his marriage while he was still a prince of Egypt, showing that the practice of intermarriage between the royal houses of Egypt and Ethiopia was long- standing).

I am fairly certain the whole book of the Song makes a single chiastic structure, which I hope to have finished tomorrow. But I did find this in our chapters this morning:

1a) Son 1:15, [The bridegroom] Behold, you are fair, my love! You have dove’s eyes;

1b) Son 1:16-2:7 {s} The beauty of Solomon, in his bride’s eyes;

1c) Son 2:8-17 {s+s+s} The bridegroom seeks the bride;

2c) Son 3:1-5 {s} The bride seeks the bridegroom;

2b) Son 3:6-11 {s+s} The glory of Solomon on his wedding day;

2a) Son 4:1-7 {s} [The bridegroom] Behold, you are fair, my love! You have dove’s eyes behind your veil.

Parts of the Song sound as if it were sung by new lovers, anxiously waiting for their wedding day; and other parts sound as if they were already married and knew each other well. If the Song is prophetic of Messiah Yeshua, returning as a Bridegroom for His bride (us, the ekklesia of believers), as I believe it is (as Solomon is a type of Messiah, in His coming reign in glory), then the structure taught me a few things.

First, isn’t it amazing that to our Bridegroom, we are all fair, and there is no spot in us? (Son 4:7). Of all people, He who paid the price for our sin, and all our spots, ought to know them. But we have been washed in His blood, and betrothed to Him. We are now clean, without spot or blemish, and so He sees us. When we see ourselves as we were, but not as we are, then we charge Him with bearing false witness, and that ought not be so.

It is the bridegroom who first seeks the bride, and she responds to him. I think this is a perfect illustration of the nature of men and women as it is from the beginning, and of course, Messiah and the church of His body. He sought us and revealed Himself to us, Amen?

And lastly, if they are married as it seems to imply throughout, they are still to each other, my bride, and my bridegroom. They treat each other as their first love. May we do likewise, Father!

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works …” Rev 2:4-5a.