^g*W OF PBI/VCf^js Logical sttt^ BS <T5Z\ THE SONG OF SONGS. THE SONG OF SONGS A REVISED TRANSLATION WITH INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY. BY JOSEPH FRANCIS THRUPP, M.A. VICAR OF BARRINGTON, LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AUTHOR OF "AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY AND USE OF THE PSALMS'* &c. MACMILLAN AND CO. ©am&rfoge attD Eontion. 1862. : Cautbribge PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PKESS. PREFACE. The object of this volume is to unfold the meaning of one of the least appreciated portions of Holy Scrip- ture. It is hoped that neither the necessary references to the original Hebrew, nor the discussion, which can be passed over at pleasure, of the principal counter-theories of interpretation, will render it less acceptable to the majority of readers. It seemed undesirable, in the interest of the truth, to leave room for suspicion that the traditional interpretation of tire Song, howsoever it might have ministered to the edification of nearly fifty generations of Christians, would not be borne out by the results of the investigations of modern scholarship. I have therefore sought throughout to build on the surest attainable foundation. That I have written to the best of my own judgment, not defending received VI PREFACE. opinions simply because they were received, the open- ing section of the Introduction will shew. But as it is in reference to the manner in which the Song should be interpreted that the authority of the general consent of the Christian Church will carry most weight, so also am I firmly persuaded that the conclusions of sober criticism will here be found to accord with the traditions of Christian teaching; and that the more closely the Song be examined, the less compatible will its language and structure prove with any other theme than that of the mutual love of the Incarnate Son of God and his redeemed Church. The use made by me of the labours of others, of whatever critical school, will sufficiently appear in the course of the work itself; which I now humbly com- mend to Almighty God in the hope that it may in some measure serve to the promotion of his glory. Barrington Vicarage, Royston, November 1862. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. SECT. PAGE 1. Title, Date, and Authorship 1 2. History of the Interpretation 16 3. Refutation of the theory which identifies the Bride with the Virgin Mary 36 4. Refutation of the typical and hebdomadal-nuptial theories 38 5. Refutation of the modern dramatic theory . 41 6. Evidence for the allegorical interpretation . 49 7. Is the Beloved God or the Messiah ? . .61 8. Is the Bride the Church or the Jewish nation 1 . 64 9. How far is the Song historico-prophetical 1 . 67 10. How far may it be interpreted of the individual soul? 71 11. Form and Divisions of the Song .... 73 12. The Prophetical character and announcements of the Song, viewed in reference to the age at which it was written 7(> 13. Use of the Song in the Christian Church . 82 vni CONTENTS. THE SONG OF SONGS. PAGE The Anticipation, i. 2—n. 7 89 The Awaiting, n. 8— in. * 121 The Espousal and its Results, in. G—v. I . 139 The Absence, v. 2—S 191 The Presence, v. 9—vni. 4 209 Love's Triumph, vni. 5— 12 261 The Conclusion, vni. 13, 14 2v2 ; THE SOXG OF SOXGS. INTRODUCTION. § i. The Hebrew title of this Book is D*WTl W r\u?$P/ ")£?X Shir hash-shirim asher U-Shelomoh, E. V. ' : The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's." The authenticity of this title has been by many called in question on the ground that it contains the relative "lC?tf in its full and usual form, instead of the provincialism, archaism, vulgarism, or abbreviation, £?, which is uniformly employed throughout the Song it- self. But it can hardly be deemed unnatural that the idiom of the title should here not conform to that of the Song. And the argument to the prejudice of the title derived from this circumstance is more than counterbalanced by the argument for its authenticity furnished by the homoeophony of the words "It? tf and 1*W (asher and shir), homoeophony of a kind of which we have throughout the Song many examples (see on I. 3). 1 2 THE SONG OF SONGS. The earlier part of the title denotes " the best or most excellent of songs." The latter part has been almost universally under- stood as ascribing the authorship of the Song to Solo- mon; and it must be admitted, from a comparison of the superscriptions of the psalms, &c. that this is the obvious and j)rimd facie interpretation of its meaning. The internal evidence of the Song itself does not, however, when fairly weighed, confirm us in the conclu- sion that Solomon should be viewed as the author. We know, in the first place, that it has generally pleased God to set apart the fittest human instruments for the different branches of his earthly work. In most books of Scripture there is an evident native harmony between the prophet and the message which he was commissioned to deliver, between the writer and the theme which he was selected to illustrate. Does it then appear from all that can be gathered of the character of Solomon, that he was the man to whom the execution of the Song of Songs was likely to be divinely en- trusted ? Some qualifications for the task may indeed be fairly conceded to him. Such were his taste for the beauties of nature, and his scientific acquaintance with those na- tural objects, animate and inanimate, whence many of the images of the Song are drawn. Such also were his taste for all kinds of artificial magnificence, and the fa- miliarity with such magnificence which he was enabled to acquire by reason of the wealth at his command. On these points the upholders of the Solomonic author- INTRODUCTION. 6 sliip of the Song have with justice enlarged. Moreover the mention of his thousand and five songs attests his cultivated love of poetry, and especially of poetry allied to the Song of Songs by outward form. But it is otherwise when we pass from the outward form and imagery of the Song to its innermost essence. That essence is love : love in all its perfectness and purity. Such love there is no evidence that Solomon had been fitted by any training to appreciate. He was voluptuous, perhaps,, sensual; but there is nought in his history to shew that he ever loved chastely, or tenderly, or self-denyingly, or consistently, or even deeply. His principal marriage, that with Pharaoh's daughter, makes some figure in Scripture; but only so far as it there illustrates his splendour. As to its morality, it was certainly contracted in public violation of the Law of Moses; and that it was otherwise more commendable we have no warrant for assuming, no indication being given that it either originated in love, or terminated in happiness. Of his other love-relations, or quasi-love- relations, we are only informed in general terms, that he "loved many strange women" of the surrounding nations ; that, despite the Lord's commandment, he "clave unto them in love;" that he "had seven hun- dred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines," and that they "turned away his heart;" and that he made provision for their various idolatries (1 Kings xi. 1 —8). Doubtless we must not judge his multitude of wives from a Christian point of view. Polygamy pre- vailed more or less in ancient times, and there are not 1—2 4 THE SONG OF SONGS. wanting in the Old Testament examples, such as Abra- ham, of polygamists who gave proof of genuine conjugal attachment. Yet polygamy was always a dark cloud on the love-relation, a deep hindrance to love's unal- loyed purity. It terribly overshadowed the mutuality of the relations of the bridegroom and the bride, the " I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," which the Song of Songs brings so emphatically before our gaze (ir. 16; VI. 3, &c). This being so, the allowance which we are bound to make for those who practised it cannot be fairly extended in all its fulness to those who first brought it into vogue; and for the like reason we can hardly acquit of personal hardness of heart the man who with unbridled excess increased his harem far beyond the limits generally observed by even Oriental princes. If critics had only refrained from surrounding Solo- mon's Egyptian marriage with a halo of bright fancies for which there is no scriptural warrant, and from con- necting, against all reason, with the person of the peace- ful Solomon the prophetical Psalm xlv, in which the Messiah appears not only as a bridegroom but also as a warrior, they would have seen how little foundation really exists for the hypothesis of that monarch's ability to depict the pure delights of holy bridal love. It is certainly not easily to be imagined that he in whom culminated the ancient disregard of the true and original position of woman as man's help meet and partner, should have been specially selected by the Holy Spirit of God to delineate, in all its delicacy and sacredness, that purest communion of love between Christ and his ! INTRODUCTION. O Church, of which natural love in its primeval innocency is the type. When moreover we find Solomon's ex- periences in connexion with earthly love pleaded as fitting him for the composition of the Song which we possess, one cannot help remarking how different his experiences from those of some of the foremost commen- tators on the Book, such, for instance, as Origen and Bernard But it will be asked, Why then should the Beloved of the Song be designated, as all allegorical interpreters admit to be the case, by Solomon's name? Can it be denied that King Solomon was the type whom the poet, in singing of the Beloved of the Church, had in view; that he haunted him as the shadow of that heavenly Bridegroom flitting beforehand across the stage of his- tory? To a certain extent, no doubt, the person of the historical Solomon was present to the poet's gaze.