Love in the Song of Songs

Abstract

The Hebrew Biblical book of the Song of Songs is sung from both a woman and a man's point of view, but it also includes a women's choir in the role of the 'Women of Jerusalem,' a sign of its beginnings in women's musical performance, even if exclusively men later sang it. The Song is alternately a richly elaborated compendium of figurative language and an exquisitely sensual portrait of love between a young woman and young man, set in Jerusalem and its environs in the flush of springtime. Yet the meaning of this text has varied widely in its long and continuing history as a vital work of scripture and literature. The Hebrew, which dates its present form to the third century B.C.E, has antecedents far older, including pre-Biblical Egyptian lyrics. Although the origins of the Song appear to lie in ancient agrarian wedding festivities, and although the Song is associated with nuptials, its role in the Hebrew liturgy is not so confined. And while the holiness of the Song is undisputed in Jewish and 'Christian theologies, its significance in the scriptures, this book that does not even mention God, is sometimes obscure