Overview of The Song of Songs / Song of Salomon

The overview of the week for this Sunday is a very unique book, the Song of Songs, also known as the

Song of Solomon. The book, which is basically a back and forth between Solomon and his wife, it begins in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, the

Song of Songs, which is Solomon's, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.

Then chapter 2 begins, I am the rose of Sharon, in the lily of the valleys, like a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.

Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the suns.

I sat down in his shade with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

So on the surface, the Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, appears to be a poem written to extol the virtues of love between a husband and his wife.

The poem clearly presents marriage as God's design. A man and a woman are to live together within the context of marriage, loving each other spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

The book combats two extremes, asceticism, which is the denial of all pleasure, and then hedonism, which is the pursuit of only pleasure.

There has been many varying interpretations of the book. Some have even questioned its canonicity because it's one of two books that doesn't mention

God at all. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, Christianity as an allegory of Christ and his bride, the

Church. However, in more modern times, scholars tend to take this view as one commentator put it.

He said, perhaps the best approach is to simply take the book at face value, where its beautiful expressions of romantic love are purposely shrouded in poetic language intended only to give general insight into the joys of passion, desire, and romance.

And as the New Testament tells us in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 4, marriage is honorable among all, in the bed undefiled.