What Is A Plain Reading Of The Song?

Over the next few days i'm going to re-post some thoughts from last year written on the Song of Songs. Hope you enjoy!


Observation, observation, observation. Three keys to good Bible reading. Find the meaning of the text, go via Corinth, take off your twenty first century glasses before you apply. These are things we must do with every book, and every page of the Bible. There's no gnostic secrets hidden in the Word. Jesus reveals Himself to us through prayer and study.

The plain meaning of the Song is clearly the celebration of erotic love right? Anything else is 'allegorical' (boo, hiss). But what if a plain reading of the Song invites the allegory, or better, spiritual reading of the Song? That is Robert Jenson's conclusion in the introduction to his 'Interpretations' commentary on the Song. Most the thoughts that follow (the good ones) are his.

What's the history of this book? Well our author is clearly immersed in canonical literature, which means that much of it must have existed as it does today when the book was written. This may exclude authorship by Solomon (which also excludes the idea that it was written specifically about one of Solomon's weddings, contra some of the wilder allegorical interpretations) but it doesn't have to. Surely the wisest man in the world would have known his Pentateuch? If, however, we can rule out Solomon as the author it means that Solomon takes on prophetic significance as the 'Son of David.'

So when we read the Song we see a series of love poems between a man and a woman, and most modern commentators leave it as that. But we must consider that every other book of the Bible tells the story of God's love for His people. God is love, after all. The Song presents a 'theology of human sexuality,' but much more than that, if we take it on it's own terms. It was the unanimous opinion of Jewish and pre modern Christian thought that these poems belong in the Bible because it communicates the love of God for His people, and vice versa.

Doesn't reading the Song allegorically squash the original meaning if the Song? Aren't we reading back into scripture? Martin Luther answers that question talking about Aaron. When we say that Aaron is a type of Christ, we don't mean that there wasn't an important, historical figure called Aaron. We mean that the historical, important Aaron tells us something of the why and the what of Christ. Furthermore, it's one thing to beware allegorization of historical narrative, quite another when the text we read seems to be presented for allegorization, as with the Song. If the Church Fathers were right, then the allegorical reading is in fact the plain sense meaning. Parts of the Song are in fact, much more plausible, as a theological allegory.

We must remember that we are dealing with poetry, and so need to be on the look out for choices of simile and metaphor, allusions to the rest of Scripture, and plays on words. There are times when it seems like 'the text itself is prodding us to theological reading. We are compelled to think that 'the poet can hardly of written... without expecting the reader to think of...' It seems that whoever made the decision to collect the Song with the canon intended it to be read theologically. Otherwise it's place in the canon makes no sense. A theological reading is appropriate if the text fits into the account of the Lord and His people as told by the rest of Scripture.

As we read the Song we must observe how the story itself progresses, we must then imbibe the metaphors, similes, word plays and allusions which take us into the story of God and His people. We must observe what we can learn about the beauty of human sexuality, but not stop there. We must remember that God came as flesh and bone, that the sacraments of the church are physical, and these physical truths from our physical world are filled with and given meaning by the theology behind them.

Just like the Song itself!