Lange Commentary - Song of Solomon

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Lange Commentary - Song of Solomon


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THE

SONG OF SOLOMON

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BY

DR. OTTO ZÖCKLER,

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GREIFSWALD

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TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADDITIONS

BY

W. HENRY GREEN, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL AND O.T. LITERATURE IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, N. J.

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THE

SONG OF SOLOMON

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INTRODUCTION

§ 1. NAME AND ARTISTIC FORM OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON

The title ùִׁéø äַùִּׁéøִéí , “Song of songs,” or, as it is more fully expressed in Son_1:1, ùִׁéø äַùִׁéøִéí àֲùֶׁø ìִùְׁìֹîçֹ . “The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s,” describes this book neither as a “series (chain) or collection of many songs” (as Kleuker, Augusti, Velthusen, Paulus suppose), nor as one prominent among the many songs of Solomon (according to Ibn Ezra’s and D. Kimchi’s translation: “A song of the songs of Solomon”). “Song of songs” (Sept., ᾆóìá ᾀóìÜôùí ; Vulg., canticum canticorum) is without doubt rather designed to characterize this poem as the most excellent of its kind, as the finest, the most precious of songs. Of the many songs, which, according to 1Ki_5:12, Solomon composed, the author of this title,—whom we must at all events distinguish from the poet himself, as is shown particularly by its àֲùֶׁø instead of the poetical abbreviation ùֶׁ , which is always used in the song itself—would exalt the one before us as especially commendable and elegant. This sense, suggested by analogies like “heaven of heavens” (1Ki_8:27), “servant of servants” Gen_9:25, “vanity of vanities” (Ecc_1:2), “ornament of ornaments” (Eze_16:7), which Luther has briefly and appositely expressed by “das Hohelied,” is undoubtedly involved in the expression, whether àֲùֶׁø ìִùְׁìֹîäֹ , “which is Solomon’s,” be referred (as is usually done) to the principal subject in the singular ùִׁéø , “song,” or to the immediately preceding plural äַùִּׁéøִéí (“Song of the songs of Solomon=the noblest among the songs of Solomon;” so, e.g., Hitzig, Ewald, Dichter des A. Bds., 2d edit., I., 236; Bleek, Einleit. in’s A. T., 2d edit., p. 636).

The unity of its contents might accordingly be inferred from this most ancient denomination of the book, traditionally preserved in the Bible. The Song of Solomon is one poem, a poetical unit artistically arranged and consistently wrought out—not a collection of many songs put together like a string of pearls (Herder), a “delightful medley” (Goethe), an anthology of erotic poems without mutual connection (Magnus), a conglomerate of “fragments thrown together in wild confusion” (Lossner), etc. All these hypotheses which issue in the chopping up of this noble work of art (with which is to be classed in the most recent times the view taken by the Reformed Jews Rebenstein and Sanders, which pares away portions of Song of Solomon 3, 8 as spurious, and carves the whole into four songs) are utterly untenable. This appears both negatively from the meaningless and formless character of the fragments, great or small, which they create, and positively from the impression of unity and inner connection which an unprejudiced and thorough study of the whole produces. That in several passages the same sentence recurs in identical words as a refrain (see particularly Son_2:7; Son_3:5; Son_8:4); that a chorus of “daughters of Jerusalem” is addressed no less than six times, and a seventh time is mentioned in the third person (Son_3:10; comp. Son_1:5; Son_2:7; Son_3:5; Son_5:8; Son_5:16; Son_8:4); that the relation of a lover to his beloved runs through the whole as the prominent theme, and prevailingly in the form of a dialogue or responsive song (see especially Song of Solomon 1; Son_2:1-7; Song of Solomon 4; Song of Solomon 7, 8); and finally that references not only to the times of Solomon, but to his person as the principal subject of all the descriptions and amatory outpourings of the heart stand out every where over and over again (Son_1:4-5; Son_3:7-11; Son_7:6; Son_8:11-12); these are incontrovertible criteria of the strict unity of the whole which is not to be doubted even where particular portions seem not to cohere so well together, or where it remains uncertain to which of the actors a sentence or series of sentences is to be assigned. The whole is really a ùִׁéø , a song or poem, i.e., not a carmen (a lyric poem, hymn or ode), to be sung with instrumental accompaniment—in which case it would have been called îִæְîåֹø rather than ùִׁéø —but a poem of a more comprehensive kind and of lyrico-dramatic character, a cycle of erotic songs, possessing unity of conception, and combined in the unity of one dramatic action. Whether now it be likened to the bucolic compositions of the later Greeks, and so be esteemed a Hebrew idyl or carmen amœbæum (so Hug, Herbst and older writers before them); or a proper dramatic character be claimed for it, and on this presumption it be maintained that it was actually performed in public, being both acted and sung after the manner of an opera (Böttcher, Renan), or at least was designed for such performance (Ewald); it must at all events be maintained as scientifically established and confirmed by all the details of its poetic execution, that its plan and composition are dramatic, and consequently that the whole belongs to the dramatic branch of the Old Testament Chokmah- ( çָëְîָä ) literature, and is the representative of the lyrico-dramatic (melo-dramatic) poetry of the O. T., as the Book of Job is the principal specimen of the epico-dramatic (didactic dialogue). Comp. the Introduction to the Solomonic Wisdom-literature in general (in commentary on Proverbs), § 5 and 10.

Remark 1.—Against the attempt of Ibn, Ezra, Kimchi and other Rabbins to explain ùִׁéø äַùִּׁéøִéí as meaning “a song of the songs” may be urged not only the analogy of the expressions above adduced as “heaven of heavens,” etc., but also the fact that this partitive sense would have to be expressed by ùִׁéø îֵäַùִּׁéøִéí . The expression “a song of the songs of Solomon” would also have been strangely pleonastic, and have conflicted unduly with the analogy of the titles to the Psalms, which never contain more than the simple ùִׁéø (or îִæְîåֹø , or ùִׁéø îִæְîåֹø ).—On the other hand, it makes against the interpretation: “a song of songs,” i.e., “a collection of several songs, a chain of songs” (Kleuker, Sammlung der Gedichte Salomo’s, sonst das Hohelied genannt, 1780, p. 6 f.; Augusti, Einleitung, p. 213), that then ùִׁéø would have an entirely different sense the first time from that it has the second, as though it were synonymous with the Chald. ùֵׁéø , “chain,” and with the corresponding Arabic word, and signified “series” (so Velthusen and Paulus, in Eichhorn’s Repertorium XVII., p. 109 f.). This would the more conflict with Hebrew usage because this language has a special fondness for the combination of a noun in the singular with a dependent plural of like signification to denote the superlative. Comp. Ewald, Lehrb., § 313, c. [Green’s Heb. Gram., § 254, 2, a].—On Solomon’s authorship indicated by àֲùֶׁø ìִùְׁìîֹäֹ comp. § 3 below.

Remark 2.—The unity of the Song of Solomon has been repeatedly contested in recent times. Herder (“Lieder der Liebe, die ältesten und schönsten aus dem Morgenlande,” 1778) was followed in this direction not only by Goethe (in the “Westöstlicher Divan” at least, whilst subsequently in his “Kunst und Alterthum” he declared for Umbreit’s view that the whole possessed dramatic unity), but also by most of the theological commentators and critics down to the 20th year of the present century, particularly Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Augusti, de Wette, in their Introductions to the Old Test.; Kleuker, Gaab, Döderlein, Gesenius, Paulus, Döpke, and many others. And at a still later period, after Ewald (1826), Koester (in Pelt’s “Theologische Mitarbeiten,” 1839), Umbreit (“Erinnerung an das hohe Lied,” 1839) and others had contended for the unity of the poem with considerable energy and success, Ed. Isid. Magnus (Kritische Bearbeitung und Erklärung des Hohenliedes Salomo’s, Halle, 1842) with the greatest expenditure of acuteness and learning sought to prove that the whole originated from uniting a number of erotic songs and sonnets in an anthology. This “floral collection” contains according to him fourteen complete odes besides a number of fragments, which may all but one (Son_2:15, fragment of a drinking song) be combined into three longer odes, together with two later supplements to two of these 17 or 18 pieces, thus making in all twenty distinguishable constituent parts, independent from one another in origin, and produced by several different poets at various periods. The seeming microscopic exactness of this investigation of Magnus made an impression upon several of the later critics, notwithstanding the evidently arbitrary manner in which the separate portions of the text “are shaken up together at pleasure like the bits of colored stone in a kaleidoscope.” Theod. Mundt, in his “Allgem. Literaturgeschichte,” 1849 (I., 153) considers it settled that the Song of Solomon is an anthology of disconnected popular erotic songs. E. W. Lossner (Salomo und Sulamith 1851) in his exegesis of the Song chiefly proposes to himself the task of “inventing some connection between the fragments thrown together in wild confusion.” And Bleek in his “Einleitung in’s A. T.” (2d edit., 1865, p. 641), edited by Kamphausen, thinks that with the admission that the whole, as it now exists, proceeded from one redactor, he must connect the assumption “that it contains sundry erotic songs,” songs, too, only a part of which were composed with reference to Solomon, the greater portion having “relation to persons of the condition of shepherds, and in the country.”—The interpolation-hypothesis of the two Jewish interpreters, A. Rebenstein and Dan. Sanders, is likewise based upon at least a partial dissection of the poem, the former of whom, in his “Lied der Lieder” (1834), the latter in Busch’s “Jahrbüch. der Israeliten,” 1845, and in his little treatise lately issued, “das Hohelied Salomonis” (Leipzig, O. Wigand, 1866), maintain that at least chap. 3.—either the entire chapter, as Rebenstein imagines, or its first five verses, as Sanders makes it—and the concluding verses Son_8:8-14 are later insertions, and that the book “purged” of these alleged spurious additions contains four songs relating to Solomon’s love for Shulamith and so far connected, but which are now out of their original order and somewhat divided. These four songs or sections of the “Idyl” are: 1) Son_1:1-6; Son_8:12; Son_1:7 to Son_2:6; Song of Solomon 2) Son_2:7-17; Son_4:1 to Son_5:1; Song of Solomon 3) Son_5:2 to Son_6:10; Song of Solomon 4) Son_3:6-11; Son_6:11 to Son_8:7.

The internal grounds for the unity and integrity of the whole, as they have been recently put together by Delitzsch particularly (“das Hohelied untersucht und ausgelegt,” Leipz., 1851, p. 4 ff.), following up the previous presentation of them by Ewald, Umbreit, etc. (see above) are decisive against all these fragmentary and crumbling hypotheses, not to speak of the uniformity throughout of the style of the language (of which more particularly in § 4). The first five and the weightiest of these grounds are: 1) The name of Solomon runs through the whole, Son_1:5; Son_3:7; Son_3:9; Son_3:11; Son_8:11-12; those passages also are to be included, in which he and no other is called äîìê , “the king,” Son_1:4; Son_1:12; comp. Son_7:6. 2) Throughout the whole there appears in addition to the lover and his beloved a chorus of áðåú éøåùìéí , “daughters of Jerusalem.” These are addressed Son_1:5; Son_2:7; Son_3:5; Son_5:8; Son_5:16; Son_8:4; and in Son_3:10 something is said about them. This shows the sameness in the dramatic constitution of the whole. 3) Throughout the whole mention is only made of the mother of the beloved, Son_1:6; Son_3:4; Son_8:2, (5), never of her father. 4) Distinct portions of the whole begin and end with the same or similar words in the style of a refrain. A new paragraph begins three times with the question of surprise, îé æàú åâå , “Who is this,” etc., Son_3:6; Son_6:10; Son_8:5; the adjuration of the daughters of Jerusalem not to waken [her] love three times forms the conclusion, Son_2:6 f.; Son_3:5; Son_8:3 f. So the summons to the lover to spring over the mountains like a gazelle manifestly stands twice at the end of a section, Son_2:17, comp. Son_2:8; and Son_8:14. 5) The whole is permeated too by declarations on the part of the maiden concerning her relation to her lover which are couched in identical terms. Twice she says “My beloved is mine and I am his, who feeds among the roses,” Son_2:16; Son_6:3; twice “I am sick of love,” Son_2:5; Son_5:8; and not only in Son_3:1-4, but as far back as Son_1:7 she calls her lover ùàäáä ðôùé “he whom my soul loves.” Likewise the address of the chorus to the beloved runs in a uniform strain, Son_1:8; Son_5:9; Son_6:1, “thou fairest among women.”—The last of these arguments contains (as does also No. 1) a special refutation of Rebenstein’s and Sanders’ objections to the genuineness or integrity of Song of Solomon 3. What are regarded as well by these critics as by the rest of those who impugn the unity of this book, as repetitions or imitations by a later hand, are shown by a true insight into the dramatic composition of the whole to be the necessary repetition of certain characteristic formulas purposely made by the poet himself. And as well in this as in all other respects the final judgment passed by Delitzsch, p. 6, upon the whole controversy respecting the unity and integrity of the Song of Solomon, seems to be abundantly justified: “He who has any perception whatever of the unity of a work of art in human discourse, will receive an impression of external unity from the Song of Solomon, which excludes all right to sunder any thing from it as of a heterogeneous character or belonging to different periods, and which compels to the conclusion of an internal unity, that may still remain an enigma to the Scripture exposition of the present, but must nevertheless exist.” Comp. also Vaihinger, der Prediger und das Hohelied, p. 258 f.

Remark 3. In respect to the poetic and artistic form of the Song of Solomon, provided its unity is admitted, and due regard is paid to the dialogue character of the discourse, there are on the whole but two views, that can possibly be entertained, that it is an idyl or bucolic carmen amœbœum, and that it is a proper drama though with a prevailing lyric and erotic character. The former supposition was adopted by some of the older interpreters mentioned by Carpzov, Introd. in libros canonicos V. T., and after them by L. Hug (“das Hohelied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung,” 1813, and “Schutzschrift” 1816), who urges in its favor the rural and pastoral character of most of the scenes and the prevalence of the same form of alternate discourse between two lovers. He has, however, remained almost alone among modern students of the Old Test. in this opinion as well as in the allegorical and political explanation of the Song connected with it, as though it were a colloquy between the ten tribes of Israel and the King of Judah. Only another catholic, Herbst (Einleitung in’s A. T., edited by Welte, 1842) substantially agrees with him; and the idyllic form of the whole as a group of twelve songs or scenes is likewise maintained by A. Heiligstedt in his continuation of Maurer’s Commentar. Gramm. Crit. in V. T., (IV. 2, 1848). The decisive consideration against this idyllic hypothesis is the constant change of scene in the Song, the frequent transfer of the locality from the country to the city, and from Solomon’s palace to Shulamith’s homestead, also the repeated change of actors and the unequal length of the intervals of time between the several scenes. All these peculiarities are foreign to the nature of the idyl or pastoral poem, and agree better with the view that the Song is a proper drama. The dialogue scenes, separated in time and place, are closely connected together by their common reference to one and the same loving relation; and with a strict maintenance of the characters introduced, though without a proper plot, they visibly depict the historical progress of the relation between a royal lover and his beloved raised from an humble position to princely splendor and exaltation. No essential characteristic of dramatic composition is wanting in this poem: from beginning to end it contains conversations between two or more persons alternating with monologues or with narrations of what had been said by others; a chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem accompanies the whole progress of the action and takes part in it; the several scenes are more or less plainly separated from one another, and at certain principal points, at least, are distinguished by the recurrence of final or initial refrains. Only we must not go so far in maintaining the dramatic character of the piece as to allege with Ewald (d. poet. Bücher des A. Bds. 2 Aufl. 1866, I. 73 ff.) that it was actually designed for public representation, or even with Böttcher (“die ältesten Bühnendichtungen,” Leipz., 1850; and “Neue exegetisch-krit. Aehrenlese” 3. Abtheil. 1865, p. 76 ff.) and Renan (Le Cantique des Cantiques, p. 83 ff.) that it was actually exhibited in the form of a play to be sung and accompanied by mimic acting, that is to say, in the style of the Sicilian-Dorian mimes, the Etruscan fescennines, the Campanian and old Roman fabulæ Atellanæ, etc. In opposition to such an exaggeration of the dramatical view into the grossly realistic, Hitzig’s remark (das Hohelied erklart, etc., p. 7,) continues in force almost without limitation. “If the piece actually came upon the stage it would be necessary for a speaker, where the language of other parties was introduced into the midst of his own, to change his voice so as actually to imitate the voices of others, and not to leave this distinction to the imagination merely: but the cases occur too frequently (Son_2:10-15; Son_5:2-3; Son_6:10; Son_7:1,) and the matter appears quite too complicated for this to be credible. The author would also assume the place of the chorus, and take part himself in the play; Son_5:1 b, (??—see against this improbable view § 2, Remark 1, p. 8); but then the piece also ceases to be objective to him, i.e., to be a drama to him. The poem certainly has a dramatic structure; but Son_2:8 already proves that the author has not the power to continue in so objective an attitude, and he slides into the more convenient path of description and narration. The action is often hidden behind an imperfect dialogue; and this is easily superseded by a prolonged discourse requiring no answer; or if one is made, it is slim and scanty (Son_7:11; Son_4:16). Finally one may well ask, if the piece were actually performed, what would be its moral effect, which must have been foreseen, and therefore intended? Would not Son_7:2-10 represented on the stage have transferred the illicit desires of the speaker to the soul of the spectators? How could the sensuality of the auditor excited by Son_4:9-10; Son_4:12 ff., be prevented from taking fire even in an extra-nuptial direction? The Song of Solomon is a drama which the poet saw in the spirit, as the apocalyptic (prophets) Daniel and John had a series of scenes pass before their spiritual eye.”—Delitzsch, too, emphasizes in opposition to Böttcher’s view of the mimic performance of the Song of Solomon in the form of a rude and “unenviable” stage play of the times of the Israelitish kings, the ideal character of its artistic and dramatic form, and the morally pure and elevated spirit which it manifestly breathes from beginning to end. He puts it, herein following the lead of Lowth (de sacra poesi Hebr. prœl. 30 ff., and Ewald (Poet. B., 1st. edit., I. 40 ff., Comp. 2d edit., I. 73) as a representative of the sacred comedy of the Old Test., beside the book of Job as the chief product of the tragic art of the O. T. people of God. This designation may be allowed to pass as appropriate in the general, and not liable to be misunderstood. Nevertheless the essential character of the artistic form employed in this composition seems to be more accurately designated by the expression “melodrama” (v. Ammon) or lyrico-dramatic poetry, inasmuch as the relation of this form to that of the book of Job (as the epico-dramatic, or didactic-dramatic) is thus not only strikingly brought out, but also those defects and imperfections pointed out in the passage cited above from Hitzig in the carrying out of the dramatic form, which is often exchanged for the purely lyric, are thus accounted for.

§
2. CONTENSTS AND DIVISIONS (CONSTITUTION) OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

The Song of Solomon begins with a responsive Song between the chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem and Shulamith, a simple country maid from Shulem or Shunem in the north of Palestine (see Son_7:1) who, for her beauty, was chosen by Solomon to be his bride, and brought to the royal palace in Jerusalem. With plain and lovely discourse, corresponding to the artless disposition of an unspoiled child of nature, she avows both her ardent love for her royal bridegroom, and her longing for her native fields, whose spicy freshness and simpler style of life she prefers to the haughty splendor of court life, and especially to being associated with the great number of ladies in the royal palace (these are the daughters of Jerusalem), Son_1:2-8. These feelings of love and of home-sickness which simultaneously assail her heart, she hereupon expresses likewise to Solomon himself, with whom, after the exit of the chorus of those ladies, she is left alone in the “house of wine,” one of the inmost rooms of the palace, Son_1:9 to Son_2:7.—Returned to her country home (and this, it would appear, with the approval of her royal lover), she finds herself still more ardently in love with him, and reveals her longing for a union with him Son_2:8 to Son_3:5, by relating two episodes from the previous history of their love, viz., their first meeting (Son_2:9-14) and a subsequent search for him, and finding him again (Son_3:1-4).—Not long after the king really comes out for her, and has her brought home with great pomp and princely honors as his royal spouse. Her festive entry into the royal palace excites the admiring curiosity, astonishment, and enthusiasm of the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Son_3:6-11). The cordial love, which her newly married husband shows her, makes her forget her home-sickness, and causes her to enter with her whole heart into the rapturous rejoicings of the wedding feast (Son_4:1 to Son_5:1). But the heaven of her happiness is soon darkened anew. A distressing dream (Son_5:2-7) mirrors to her the loss, nay the desertion of her husband; and soon after the way in which he mentions his numerous concubines, with whom she is to share his love (Son_6:8), in the midst of his caresses and flattering speeches (Son_6:4-9) shows her that she can never feel happy in the voluptuous whirl of his court life already degenerated into the impure. Hence her longing for the quiet and innocent simplicity of her rural home is awakened more strongly than ever before, and drives her to entreat her lover to remove thither with her altogether, that as at once a husband and a brother, he may belong exclusively to her (Son_5:2 to Son_8:4). Overcome by her charms and loveliness, Solomon yields and grants her her humble request to become a plain shepherdess and vinedresser again, instead of a queen surrounded by pomp and splendor. He even takes part in the merry sport and innocent raillery with which she pleases herself in her old accustomed way in the circle of her brothers and sister (one little sister and several grown up brothers), and joins in the spirited encomium upon the all-conquering and even death-exceeding power of wedded love and fidelity (Son_8:6-8), by which, with a thankful heart, she celebrates her return home (Son_8:5-14).

This simple action, almost entirely free from exciting complications and contrasts, is divided by the poet into five acts, of which the next to the last (Son_5:2 to Son_8:4) is in striking contrast with the rest from its disproportionate length, but yet cannot well be divided into two, because no proper point of division can be found either at Son_6:9-10, or at Son_7:1. Instead of the number six, maintained by Delitzsch, we shall, therefore, with Ewald, Böttcher and others have to affirm the existence of five principal scenes or sections of the piece. And in substantial adherence to the only correct view of the aim and constitution of the whole as given by Delitzsch, we shall have to assign the following characteristic titles or statements of contents to these five acts:—1) Chap. Son_1:2 to Son_2:7. The first time the lovers were together at the royal palace in (or near) Jerusalem. 2) Chap. Son_2:8 to Son_3:5. The first meeting of the lovers, related by Shulamith, who has returned to her home. 3) Chap. Son_3:6 to Son_5:1. The solemn bringing of the bride, and the marriage at Jerusalem. 4) Chap. Son_5:2 to Son_8:4. Shulamith’s longing reawakened for her home. 5) Son_8:5-14. The return home and the triumph of the chaste love of the wife over the unchaste feelings of her royal husband.

Remark 1. According to the ordinary erotic and historical interpretation of the Song of Solomon, as it has been developed particularly by Umbreit, Ewald, Hitzig, Vaihinger and Renan, after the previous suggestions of Jacobi, Ammon, Stäudlin, etc., (comp. § 6) Shulamith is in love not with Solomon, but with a young shepherd of her country home, from whom the wanton king, after getting her in his harem by force or fraud (Son_1:4; comp. Son_6:11-12) seeks to alienate her by all sorts of inducements and seductive arts. But the maid, by her pure love to her quondam playmate, resists all the enticements which the king brings to bear upon her, partly through the medium of the ladies of his court, and partly in person by his own flattering speeches and several times by direct and violent assaults upon her virtue (e.g., Son_4:9 ff.; Son_7:2-10). Convinced of the fidelity of her devotion to her distant lover Solomon is at length obliged to dismiss her to her home, whither according to Stäudlin, Renan and Hitzig she is taken by her affianced, who has meanwhile hastened to her on the wings of love (Son_7:12 ff.—?), whilst Umbreit, Ewald and others prefer to leave it undecided how she returned from Jerusalem to Shulem, and conceive of her in Son_8:5 ff. as suddenly and in some unexplained way transported again to the environs of her home and to the side of her lover.—This view, according to which the whole is to be regarded as a “tribute of praise to an innocence which withstands every allurement,” as a “song of praise to a pure, guileless, faithful love, which no splendor can dazzle, and no flattery ensnare” (Ewald), seems to be chiefly favored by some expressions of Shulamith in chap. 1., as well as here and there in what follows, which at first sight have the look of passionate exclamations to her distant lover; so particularly Son_1:4, “Draw me after thee, then we will run,” and Son_1:7, “O tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, where feedest thou?” etc. Comp. also Son_4:16; Son_5:10; Son_6:2, etc. But everything is much simpler both in these passages and generally in the whole poem, if Shulamith’s avowals of love are in all cases referred to the king himself, and accordingly the object of her longing as expressed, e.g., in Son_1:6 f.; Son_2:1; Son_2:3 ff.; Son_6:11-12; Son_7:12 ff., is conceived to be not an absent lover, but only the peaceful quiet and beauty of her country home. This ardent longing, or rather the childlike simplicity and humility which are at the bottom of it, lead her to think of her royal lover himself as though he were a shepherd of her native fields, and to describe all his acts and movements, his plans and occupations, by expressions drawn from rural and pastoral life (see Son_1:7; Son_1:13-14; Son_1:17; Son_2:3 ff., Son_2:8 ff., Son_2:16 f.; Son_5:10 ff.; Son_6:2 f.). She continues this until her eager desires are finally granted, and her royal lover, vanquished by the power and sincerity of her love, follows her to her quiet home, leaving all the luxurious splendor and voluptuousness of his court in order to live as a shepherd among shepherds, and “like a roe or a young hart on the mountains of spices” (Son_8:14) to participate in the innocent amusements of Shulamith and her brothers and sister. This happy decision is brought about mainly by the glowing earnestness of Shulamith’s language in Son_7:10 ff., in which her love for Solomon and her homesickness are both most strongly and most movingly expressed. Several things in this address of hers are unaccountable upon any other view of the whole than that which is here presented, especially the wish “O that thou wert to me as a brother,” etc. (Son_8:1), and likewise the exhortation “Come my beloved, let us go into the country,” etc. (Son_7:12). And many previous expressions of Shulamith, as Son_1:12; Son_2:4; Son_4:16, testify, with a clearness not to be mistaken, her loving consent to Solomon’s suit, and therefore cannot without forcing be reconciled with the ordinary profane-erotic explanation. It must in particular be regarded as extremely forced when Ewald regards the passage Son_4:8 to Son_5:1 as a monologue of Shulamith in which she describes the plighted love of her distant lover, while nothing is clearer than that the familiar colloquy of the bridal pair on their wedding day, which begins with Son_4:1, is continued in this section, (comp. Delitzsch, p. 33 f.). Several of the assumptions, by which Hitzig tries to bolster up his peculiar modifications of the profane-erotic interpretation are quite as arbitrary, e.g. the assertion that Son_2:7; Son_3:5; Son_8:4, is the language not of Shulamith but of the poet, who here undertakes to perform the part of the chorus, addressed to the “daughters of Jerusalem” just as in v. 1 b also the poet “puts himself forward” (!?); the intolerable harshness of regarding Son_6:8 as an expression of the vexation at the coy beauty, with which Solomon turns away from her and back again to the ladies of his court who are ready for every kind of indulgence; the opinion that in Son_7:2-10 Solomon makes a declaration of love not to Shulamith, but to some one of his concubines, and that in a vulgar and indecent way; the assumption that Shulamith’s country lover ‘was present in Jerusalem, not only from Son_7:11, but from Son_4:6 onward, and was engaged in the business of taking his affianced home from the royal harem, etc. Renan, who follows Hitzig in the main has endeavored to extend some of these assumptions in a peculiar way, e.g., by the assertion that the shepherd beloved by Shulamith, and who hastens to release her from the royal harem, already comes upon the scene in Son_2:2; by the romantic idea that the same languishing shepherd utters the words Son_4:8-15 “at the foot of the tower of the Seraglio,” in which his beloved is confined, is then (Son_4:16) admitted by her and enraptured exclaims to the chorus the words v. 1 b.; by the fantastic assumption that when finally released she is carried home asleep by her lover, and laid under an apple tree, where she then Son_8:5 f., awakes, etc. The like, only in some respects more whimsical in Böttcher, die ältesten Bühnendichtungen, etc. The wide divergence between these leading advocates of the view which we are opposing, and that in so many and by no means unimportant particulars, must give rise to misgivings with regard to the tenability of that fundamental conception which they have in common. Numerous other discrepancies between them as well as between the critics most nearly akin to them will meet us in the course of the detailed exegesis, and will confirm from the most diverse quarters the impossibility of carrying consistently through the hypothesis of two rival lovers of Shulamith in any of its phases. The view advocated by us cannot, it is true, attain to absolute certainty, such as shall be perfectly satisfactory in all respects, because the absence of titles to the several acts, as well as to the parts of each particular person, makes a reliable distribution of the action amongst the several parties impossible in many cases; and because, unfortunately, no old and credible accounts of the original meaning and origin of the poem, that is to say no correct explanatory scholia are in existence. Thus much, however, can be established with a high degree of probability that among the various historical explanations of this drama that which is here attempted by us as a modification of that of Delitzsch harmonizes particularly well at once with the contents of the piece ascertained in an unprejudiced manner, and with its composition by Solomon, which is attested by tradition and by internal considerations; on which account it is to be preferred to the historical explanation of v. Hofmann, which is kindred to it in many respects. (He identifies the bride of the song with Pharaoh’s daughter, celebrated in Psalms 45, and takes the poem to be a celebration of the marriage of Solomon and this Egyptian princess, moving in figures drawn from the life of shepherds and vintagers). See further particulars concerning and in opposition to this exposition of Hofmann in Delitzsch, p. 37 ff.; and comp. § 4 below.

Remark 2.—The opinions of different interpreters also diverge considerably in respect to the limits of the several scenes and acts or songs, whilst the piece itself does not furnish certain criteria enough to verify either one view or another. Most of the recent writers agree in assuming about ten or twelve scenes; but less unanimity prevails in regard to the question how these shorter scenes are to be apportioned among the larger acts, and how many such acts are to be assumed. Hitzig altogether despairs of reducing the nine “scenes” affirmed by him to a smaller number of acts. Delitzsch, Hahn, and Weissbach number six acts with two scenes each. Ewald (after giving up the assumption of four acts previously maintained in his commentary of 1826) and with him Böttcher, Renan, Vaihinger and many others make five acts among which they variously distribute the thirteen to fifteen scenes which they assume. E. F. Friedrich reckons four acts with ten scenes. And finally von Hofmann assumes but three principal divisions of about the same length (Son_1:2 to Son_3:5; Son_3:6 to Son_5:16; Son_6:1 to Son_8:12) to which he supposes a brief conclusion of but two verses (Son_8:13-14) to be appended. The assumption of five acts might be recommended in the general by the consideration that the action of any drama by a sort of necessity passes through five main steps or stages in its progress to its consummation; whence we see Greek dramas invariably, and the old Indian at least prevailingly divided into that number of acts, and the dialogue portion of the book of Job, the other chief product of the dramatic art in the Old Testament besides the Song of Solomon, is most clearly separated into five divisions (comp. Ewald, d. Dichter d. A. Bds., I. 69; Delitzsch, d. B., Job, p. 12, in the “Bibl. Commentar.” by Keil and Del.). To this may be added that judging by the quintuple division of the Song of Solomon found in some old Ethiopic versions, the Sept. which is at the basis of these versions would seem to have divided the book into that number of sections (Ewald, Bibl. Jahrb., 1849, p. 49), and that exegetical tradition, in so far as it gives manifold testimony even in the patristic period (e.g., Origen, Jerome) to the dramatic character of this piece, likewise confirms, though indirectly, its separation into the five customary divisions of every drama. Against the assumption made by Delitzsch and Hahn of six acts may be further urged in particular that the assertion on which it is based that the larger Act_5:2 to Act_8:4 is plainly divided into two acts by the recurrence in Son_6:10 of the admiring question îé æàú åâå from Son_3:6 is certainly unfounded, because this question is here manifestly only a statement of what was thought and said by the women mentioned in the preceding verse, and is therefore most closely connected with Son_3:9, as this with Son_3:8 of the same chapter (comp. the exeget. explanations in loc.). A separation of what is certainly a disproportionately long section Son_5:2 to Son_8:4, into two or more of similar size seems on the whole to be impracticable on account of the uniformity and continuity of its contents, and we shall for this reason have to assume that the five acts enumerated above in the text of this section are probably the original ones; especially as there can be no doubt of the correctness of the points of division assumed by Delitzsch in substantial agreement with Ewald (Son_2:7; Son_3:5; Son_8:4—in each case the well known refrain: “I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,” etc.). We differ in this division from Ewald and Böttcher only in that we make the third act end with Son_5:1, because Ewald’s assertion that this characteristic concluding verse “I adjure you, etc.,” has been dropped after Son_5:8, cannot be proved, and the attaching of Son_5:2-7 to the third act appears on the whole inappropriate (as was also seen by Renan). Our division is distinguished from that of Renan by the different compass which it assigns to the last two acts, of which the fourth extends according to him from Son_5:2 to Son_6:3, the fifth from Son_6:3 to Son_8:7, and finally Son_8:8-14 is a small appendix or epilogue—all this in virtue of the strangest and most forced assumptions, which will be remarked upon as far as is necessary in the detailed interpretation. On the compass and limits of the scenes, into which the five acts are again divided, we shall have to treat in connection with the detailed exegesis.

§
3.—DATE AND AUTHOR OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON.

That Canticles was composed in the age of Solomon as the flourishing period of the Old Testament Chokmah-literature may be argued not only from manifold indications of the affinity between its ethical tendency and view of the world and those of Solomon’s collection of proverbs, but chiefly from the certainty with which its author deals with all that is connected with the history of the Solomonic period; the exuberant prosperity and the abundance of native and foreign commodities whose existence he assumes in Israel at that time, and the remarkably rich round of figures and comparisons from nature which is everywhere at his command in his descriptions. And that this author is no other than Solomon himself is shown by the extensive knowledge which he exhibits throughout the entire poem of remarkable and rare objects from all of the three kingdoms of nature, and by which he may be most unmistakably recognized as that wise and well-informed king, who was able to speak “of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things and of fishes,” 1Ki_5:13 (1Ki_4:33). Solomon’s authorship is likewise confirmed by the equal acquaintance which the poet shows with all parts of the land of Israel; the easy and familiar way, indicating not only accurate knowledge but royal possession and ownership, in which he speaks of horses in Pharaoh’s chariot (Son_1:9), of wood from Lebanon (Son_3:9), of the tower in Lebanon looking toward Damascus (Son_7:5), of the pools of Heshbon and the forests of Carmel (Son_7:5-6), the tents of Kedar and the mountains of Gilead (Son_1:5; Son_4:1), of the beauty of Tirzah and the loveliness of Jerusalem (Son_6:4; comp. Son_4:4), etc. The peculiarities in the language of the poem, rightly estimated, likewise testify rather in favor of than against Solomon’s authorship. For the Aramæisms and apparent traces of later usage, which it presents, are, like similar phenomena in the Song of Deborah, in the Book of Job, in the prophet Amos, etc., to be attributed entirely to its highly poetical character. And the occurrence in individual cases of foreign non-Semitic words (e.g. ôַּøְãֵּí Son_4:13, àַôִּøְéåֹï Son_3:9), if this were actually proven, would be least surprising in a writer of such many-sided learning and of so universal a turn of mind as Solomon. And finally the contents of the piece are of such a nature as not only to admit but actually to favor the supposition that Solomon is the author, provided that in ascertaining these contents we discard the common assumption of the profane-erotic exegesis that this king is introduced as the seducer of the innocence of a country maid who adheres with steadfast fidelity to her betrothed. For the fundamental thought set forth above (§ 2, p. 6) in opposition thereto, of a purifying influence proceeding from Shulamith’s devoted love upon the heart of the king, already partly tainted by the sensuality of polygamy and the voluptuous manners of the harem, harmonizes very well with the reference of the poem to Solomon; especially as the mention of the sixty queens and the eighty concubines compared with the numbers stated in 1Ki_11:3 as belonging to his later years, seven hundred queens and three hundred concubines, points to an earlier period in the life of this king as the date of the poem, a time when his many wives had not yet ensnared his heart in unhallowed passion, nor “turned him away after strange gods” to the extent that this took place shortly before his death, 1Ki_11:4. It is, therefore, Solomon, when he had not yet sunk to the lowest stage of polygamous and idolatrous degeneracy, but was still relatively pure, and at any rate was still in full possession of his rich poetic productivity 1Ki_5:12 (1Ki_4:32) whom we must suppose to have been the author of this incomparably beautiful and graceful lyrico-dramatic work of art, in which he on the one hand extols the virtue of his charming wife, and on the other humbly confesses his own resistance at first to the purifying influence proceeding from her.

On this view, therefore, the statement of the title (Son_1:1), which, though post-Solomonic [?], is yet very ancient and certainly prior to the closing of the Canon, is justified as perfectly true historically; and it is unnecessary, for the sake of setting aside the direct Solomonic origin of the poem, to give to ìִùְׁìֹîäֹ , in violation of the laws of the language and of the constant usage of ìְ in the superscriptions to the Psalms, the explanation, “in reference to Solomon,” or “in the style of Solomon,” to which e.g. Umbreit, following the lead of some older commentators like Cocceius, shows himself inclined (perhaps also the Septuag. with its translation: Á ͂̓ éóìá ’ ᾳóìÜôùí , ὅ ἐóôéí ôῷ Óáëùìþí ).

Remark 1. The position of the Song of Solomon in the literature of the Old Testament is thus defined by Delitzsch (Section II., p. 9 ff.) as the result of a careful investigation: With the exception of some points of contact with Genesis (comp. e.g. Son_7:11 with Gen_3:16; Gen_4:11 with Gen_27:27; Gen_8:6 with Gen_49:7), it contains no references to the earlier writings of the Bible. Quite as little does it betray any close relationship in ideas or language with the Psalms of David or the Book of Job, the principal productions of the oldest lyric and dramatic literature of the Old Testament. But on the contrary it presents more numerous and significant instances of resemblance to or accordance with those sections of the Book of Proverbs, which date from the time next after Solomon, especially with Proverbs 1-9, 22-24; and these are of such a nature as to assert its priority and the imitation of many of its ideas and expressions by the authors of those sections. The correctness of these observations, from which it follows at least that Canticles originated in the Solomonic period, can scarcely be impugned, in view especially of such manifest coincidences as that between Pro_5:15 ff. and Son_4:15, between Pro_7:17 and Son_4:14, between Pro_5:3 and Son_4:11, between Pro_6:30-31 and Son_8:6-7, between Pro_23:31 and Son_7:10. More important, however, than these and like internal testimonies to the existence of the Song of Solomon in an epoch which at any rate was very near that of Solomon (comp. various other characteristic coincidences in individual expressions between this Song and the Proverbs collected by Hengstenberg, das Hohelied Salomo’s, etc., p. 234 f., and Haevernick, Einleit. I., 1, 211) are the indications which point directly to Solomon himself as the author, such as the Song contains in no small number. First of all, it moves among the historical relations of the time of David and Solomon with the utmost confidence. It knows the crown, with which Solomon was crowned by his mother Bathsheba on the day of his marriage (Son_3:11), likewise his bed of state made of cedar wood from Lebanon (Son_3:9-10), and his sedan surrounded by sixty of the heroes of Israel (Son_3:7); further, the tower of David hung with a thousand shields (Son_4:4), the ivory tower of Solomon, as well as the watch-tower built on Lebanon toward Damascus (Son_7:5). All these things, to which are to be added the “horses in Pharaoh’s chariot,” i.e. the chariot horses of the king imported from Egypt (Son_1:9; comp. 1Ki_10:28-29; 2Ch_9:28); likewise Solomon’s “sixty queens and eighty concubines” (Son_6:8; comp. 1Ki_11:3): the royal vineyards at Engedi and at Baal-hamon (Son_1:14; Son_8:11); the pools of Heshbon (Son_7:5); Shenir, Hermon and Amana, peaks of Lebanon (Son_4:8); the plain of Sharon and Mount Carmel (Son_2:1; Son_7:6), etc.—all this is taken in so ready a way from objects immediately at hand, and described upon occasion with such an accurate and thorough knowledge of the things themselves that we cannot deem the author of such descriptions to have been a subject or citizen of Solomon’s kingdom or any other than this king himself, the possessor and ruler of the whole. And this especially for the reason that in the way in which the manifold beauties of nature and of art in the kingdom just mentioned are by bold comparisons and luxuriant figures employed to exalt the Shulamite, there is a manifest endeavor to connect whatever in it is grand and entrancing with the king’s beloved and to represent the whole as personally concentrated as it were in her. That along with this Solomon is often mentioned in the third person and by name, that not unfrequently he is spoken of in a laudatory way, and once particularly (Son_5:10-16) the praise of his beauty is dwelt upon at length and in lavish terms from the mouth of his beloved—this can no more be regarded as disproving the authorship of Solomon, than it can be inferred from the mention of Tirzah along with Jerusalem in Son_6:4 that the poem did not have its origin until after Solomon’s death, in the time when the kingdoms were divided. For Tirzah was doubtless already under David and Solomon a city distinguished for its greatness and beauty, and was only made the royal residence in the northern kingdom by Jeroboam and his immediate successors (1Ki_14:17; 1Ki_15:21; 1Ki_16:8; 1Ki_16:23), for the reason that it had previously attained to a highly flourishing condition and to great consequence, comp. Jos_12:24, where it already appears as an ancient city of the Canaanitish kings. The laudation of Solomon, however, like the frequent mention of his name is sufficiently explained by the dramatic constitution of the whole, which made it necessary for the royal poet to speak of himself as objectively as possible (comp. much that is similar in the Psalms of David, e.g., Psalms 20, 21, 110, likewise in Psalms 72 by Solomon) and which in particular “unavoidably brought with it the mutual praise of the lover and his beloved” (Del. p. 17). But a more emphatic testimony than any hitherto adduced, is borne in favor of Solomon himself as the author of the poem, by the extraordinarily developed appreciation of the beauties of nature which the singer exhibits at every point of his performance, and his fondness, which reminds us at once of 1Ki_5:13 (Ki_4:33), for figures, tropes and similes highly imaginative in conception and in execution, and drawn from every realm of nature, particularly from animal and plant life. There are mentioned in this poem nearly twenty names of plants ( àֱâåֹæ nut, àֲäָìåֹú lignaloes, àֶøֶæ cedar, çֲáַöֶּìֶú . wild flower, çִèִּéí wheat, ëֹּôֶø cyprus-flower, ëַּøְëֹּí crocus, ìְáֹðָä frankincense, îøֹ myrrh, ðֵãְãְּ nard, øִîּåֹï pomegranate, ùׁåֹùָׁï lily, úְּàֵðָä fig, úַּôּåּçַ apple, áְּøåֹú cypress, âֶôֶï vine, ãּåּãָàִéí mandrakes, ÷ָðֶä calamus, ÷ִðָּîåֹï cinnamon), and almost as many names of animals ( ðְîָøִéí panthers, ñåּñָä horse, òåֹøֵá raven, òִæִּéí goats, òôֶֹּø çָàַéָּìִéí a young hart, àַéֶּìֶú äַùָּׂãֶä hind, ùׁåּòָìִéí foxes, úּåֹø turtle-dove, àֲøָéåֹú lions, âְּãִéּåֹú kids, éåֹðִéí doves, öְáִé gazelle, øְçֵìִéí sheep; comp. also ùֵׁï ivory, which is named several times). And not a few of these names are Hapaxlegomena or like the names of valuable minerals (as ùֵׁùׁ marble, úַּøְùִׁéùׁ turquoise, ñַôִּéø sapphire) which are also found here, occur but rarely in other books of the Old Testament. If we duly consider the small compass of the piece in which such an abundance of names of remarkable natural objects is crowded together, and estimate besides the repeated occurrence of many of these names and the “various points of view under which they are contemplated (e.g. in the pomegranate, its pulp when cut, Son_4:3; Son_6:7; its buds, Son_6:11; Son_7:13; its juice, Son_8:2),” we can scarcely help, in view of the fact that numerous internal and external indications point to the age of Solomon as the date of the Song, finding its author in Solomon himself, the renowned royal sage, whom the book of Kings (loc. cit.) praises as at once the greatest of natural philosophers and the most fertile composer of songs. Moreover the criterion afforded in Son_6:8 for the more exact determination of the period of his life, in which Solomon composed this poem, must in no wise be overlooked. From a comparison of this passage with 1Ki_11:3 f. we can conclude with entire certainty that the period in question was that middle age of the king when his decline from his former sincere obedience to the commandments of the Lord had already begun, without having attained that depth of moral degeneracy which it subsequently reached. This was already substantially the opinion of Grotius in his Adnotat. in V. T. respecting the date and origin of the Song of Solomon (after those Jewish interpreters in Bereshith Rabba, Jalkut and Pesikta, who supposed that Canticles was composed by Solomon in his younger years), only he (as also v. Hofmann, see § 2 Remark 1) erroneously explained it of the marriage of Solomon with an Egyptian princess and mingled in many notions of its contents as referring to the mysteries of married life, which were offensive to the æsthetic and moral feelings of Christian readers. (Comp. Delitzsch, p. 14, 55).

Remark 2. The most considerable objections of modern critics against the Solomonic authenticity of Canticles are those which are drawn from its language. Yet no decisive argument against its genuineness can be constructed out of them, because the alleged traces of a later Aramæizing type of the language, which it presents, may all without exception be explained as characteristic of the poetic character of its diction. So, first of all, the abbreviated relative ùֶֹׁ for àֲùֶׁø , which, though foreign to prose and to the semi-prosaic language of the gnomic poets of the earlier period, and on this account neither used by the author of the prosaic title to this book (comp. above, p. 1), nor even by Solomon in his proverbs (Pro_10:1 to Pro_22:16, where as in the Proverbs generally the form àֲùֶׁø is invariably found), nevertheless occurs in several poems, of acknowledged antiquity, especially in the Song of Deborah, which is certainly pre-Solomonic (Jdg_5:7; òַã ùֶׁ÷ַּîְ&