Hebrew Bible – Old Testament – The Mikra Or The Acronym Tanakh The Acronym Is Based On The Initial Hebrew Letters Of Each Of Th

Bible Lecture – Song of Solomon, Song of Songs, Shir HaShirim Canticles

Hebrew Poetry 1. Poetry defined (Davies) a. Davies argues that poetry is defined as the “verbal composition, imaginative and concrete in matter, and emotional and rhythmic in form." b. This definition recognizes two aspects of poetry, the formal and the material. i. The substance of poetry must be concrete ii. it is philosophy that deals with the abstract; and it has to be the product more or less of the creative imagination. c. It is of the essence of poetry that, like music, it should be expressed in rhythmical but not necessarily in metrical form. d. Moreover, the language has to be such as will stir up the aesthetic emotions 2. The poetry in the Bible was largely ignored as literature until the late 18th Century a. Since the Bible was regarded as preeminently, if not exclusively, a revelation of the divine mind, attention was fixed upon what it contained, to the neglect of the literary form in which it was expressed b. Biblical Hebrew poets were less conscious as poets than western poets, and thought much less of the external form in which they expressed themselves. i. Biblical poetry lacks therefore such close adherence to formal rules as that which characterizes Greek, Arabic or English poetry. ii. The authors wrote as they felt and because they felt, and their strong emotions dictated the forms their words took, and not any objective standards set up by the schools. 3. Characteristics a. Vocabulary and grammar b. Rhythm – accented and non-accented c. Parallelism – logical rythym i. The Synonymous: In this the same thing is repeated in different words, e.g. Psalms 36:5: "Yahweh, Thy lovingkindness (reaches) to the heavens, Thy faithfulness (reaches) to the clouds.' ii. Antithetic Parallelism: In which the second member of a line (or verse) gives the obverse side of the same thought, e.g. Proverbs 10:1:"A wise son gladdens his father, But a foolish son grieves his mother" iii. Synthetic Parallelism: Called also constructive and epithetic. In this the second member adds something fresh to the first, or else explains it, e.g. Psalms 19:8 f:"The precepts of Yahweh are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandments of Yahweh are pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of Yahweh is clean, enduring forever: The judgments of Yahweh are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb" d. Metaphor i. Vehicle or image ii. Tenor or message iii. Lord is my shepherd e. Other devices i. Alliteration ii. Meter

Song of Solomon (Velie) 1. It is ostensibly the love song written by Solomon to one of his 700 wives. 2. Not only is the tone highly sensuous, but the topic is odd for the Bible: there is no moral instruction, no history of a chosen people, no prophetic warning. 3. The Song was added to the canon of the Hebrew Bible very late (after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD), over the objection of many rabbis who believed that it had no place in Holy Writ. a. The reasons for its inclusion were its putative authorship (Solomon was the greatest Jewish king), and the fact that some rabbis decided to interpret it allegorically: the love described was not a man for a woman, but of God for his chosen people. b. The same arguments were repeated during the establishment of the Christian canon; the allegorical interpretation that carried the day was that the love was the love of Christ for the Church. 4. The striking thing stylistically about the Song is the strange nature of its metaphors. a. Most metaphors in any language are highly traditional. Metaphors have two parts: the vehicle, or image, and the tenor, or meaning. i. For instance, in the metaphor “he was a lion in battle,” the vehicle is “lion,” and the tenor is “he was brave.” Other meanings are theoretically possible: “he was yellow,” “he had long hair,” “he weighed 800 pounds,” “he used his long teeth.” ii. These possibilities are ridiculous of course, because a lion here and elsewhere functions as a symbol of bravery. Likewise Robert Burns’s line, “my love is like a red, red rose” means simply “my love is beautiful,” not “thorny,” “florid,” or “wrinkled.” b. The images in The Song of Solomon are far different from those of the Psalms. In Song the lover describes his love as “comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners” (6:4) He describes her neck as a “tower of ivory,” (7:4) her eyes as “fishpools,” (7:4) and her hair like a “flock of goats.” (4:2) If these images are traditional, it is a tradition that is far different from that of the rest of the Bible. If the writer is Solomon (many scholars doubt it), he is writing while David was still alive or shortly after his death, and so it is surprising to find him using such a different style. 5. Although some of the images are bizarre, the poem is very effective as a love poem, highly sensuous and powerful. a. Many of the lines have been used repeatedly in our time. “Comfort Me with Apples” (2:5) is the title of a Peter DeVries novel, “The Voice of the Turtle” (2:12) and “The Little Foxes” (2:15) were Broadway plays. 6. While I personally do not believe the poem is allegorical—why would God say to His people or His Church, “Thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies”?—it should be pointed out that religious poets from St. Theresa to John Donne have used the language of sensuality and even sexuality to describe divine love. Donne went so far in Holy Sonnet XIV as to ask God to rape him. It is at least possible that Song of Solomon is an early example of this tradition. 7. Meanings (Alter and Kemode) a. Sex and Words i. Sexual interpretations of the Song are both fascinating and boring; they exemplify the pornographic desire to name and appropriate pleasure, to have it at imaginative command, and they miss the point.(305) ii. The poem verges always on the limits of language, which points to that which cannot be spoken. ... There is no "story" in the Song, no truth, only a set of anecdotes, hovering between reality and dream, that exemplify the relationships of lovers. (316) b. The Beloved and the Earth i. The Beloved is associated with the earth... the feminine complement of God; the two combined to form man, who articulates their relationship, for example, in sacrifice. ... The elaborate combinations of parts of the body and geographic features, like those between the lovers bodies, assert the indissolubility of man and the earth, man as part of nature, and his representative status. Through the lovers and the poet, all creatures find their voice and are consummated through love. (314) ii. There is also an opposition between the woman and the country; she is its equivalent, and its rival for the king's attentions. As prisoner of her hair, he is emblematic of the vulnerability of kings, and hence of the whole body politic, to sexuality, the ultimate power of women that is the object of repression.(315) c. Structure i. The image of breasts as young roes [4:1-2] suggests an association of justified timidity; like the young roes, the breasts are delectable and the object of male pursuit. But here they are in repose between the lovers; they have found a safe haven, as if we have perceived them unawares, or fear has not yet interposed itself between men and animals.(310) ii. In general, large central units complement each other (for example, the two descriptions of the woman in 4:1-7 and 7:1-6, and the two episodes in the garden, 4:12-5:1 and 6:1-12), as do smaller peripheral ones. The center is the point of transition between two entirely different moments. The first is the entrance of the Lover into the garden of love which is the Beloved in 5:1; his possession and enjoyment of its fruits constitute the one act of consummation in the poem, and hence its emotional center. Round it all the other scenes are grouped. The other moment is the waking of the Beloved's heart to the Lover's knocking in 5:2, under cover of her sleep. (316-7) d. Description of woman & garden i. The garden is the longest episode as well as the central image in the poem; its relation to the poem corresponds to that of the garden to the world. ... The other structural focus is the climax, in which the poem's narrative pressure--its work of comparison, its alternation of promise and postponement--is released. It is the assertion that love is as strong as death, that jealousy/passion is as harsh or enduring as Sheol, and that its sparks or coals are the flame of God (8:6). (317) ii. The dominance and initiative of the beloved are the poem's most astonishing characteristics. Metaphorically aligned with the feminine aspect of divinity, associated with the celestial bodies, the land, and fertility, the Beloved reverses the predominantly patriarchal theology of the Bible. Male political power is enthralled to her. The lovers live, however, in a patriarchal world; the Beloved suffers the humiliation that attends sexually adventurous women. She is cast out of her family (1:6), despised by shepherds (1:7), beaten by watchmen (5:7). The lovers can only find or imagine an enclosure, secluded from the world: a garden, a forest bed, or the poem itself. The poem is unfailingly critical of a society that does not know the true value of love and that imposes shame on lovers. (317-8) iii. The Song is a reflection on the story of the garden of Eden, using the same images of garden and tree, substituting for the traumatic dissociation of man and animals their metaphors of integration. Through it we glimpse, belatedly, by the grace of poetry, the possibility of paradise. (318)