Reading the Song of Songs
The Song of Songs is eight chapters of love poetry between a man and a woman. God made that love at the beginning: He "brought her to the man," and "they shall become one flesh" (Genesis 2:22, 24, ESV). The Song most likely names Him once, at its climax, and calls the fire of their love "the very flame of the LORD" (Song of Songs 8:6, ESV).
In one sentence: The Song celebrates the love of a betrothed man and woman, most likely calls that love's fire the flame of the LORD, and so treats married love as His gift; Paul names what marriage itself points to: Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32).
Key Takeaways
(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)
Types & Prophecy
Paul supplies the key the Song never states. He quotes Genesis 2:24 and says of it, "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32, ESV). The Song makes no prediction, and Paul does not quote it. The line from the Song to Christ runs through Genesis 2:24, which Paul does quote.
Lessons about Jesus
- Jesus loves His church with a love as strong as death. "Love is strong as death" (Song of Songs 8:6, ESV), and Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25, ESV).
- Jesus burns with holy zeal. The Song's word for jealousy, קִנְאָה (qinʾah, H7068), is the word of Psalm 69:9, "zeal for your house has consumed me" (ESV), which the disciples remembered when Jesus cleared the temple (John 2:17).
Memory verses
✝️ Song of Songs 8:7 (ESV)
7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
Be Transformed
- Think. Married love is God's gift from the beginning (Genesis 2:22-24), and the Song most likely calls its fire His (8:6). Hold it as holy.
- Attitude. Wait for love's time with joy: "that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (Song of Songs 2:7, ESV).
- Do. Pray this week, by name, for your own marriage or for three marriages you know, in the Song's own words, "Set me as a seal upon your heart" (Song of Songs 8:6, ESV), and ask God to keep the flame He lit.
Prayer
Father, you made love, and you set your own flame in it. Thank you that your Son Jesus loved us with a love many waters cannot quench, and gave Himself up for us. Keep the marriages among us faithful and warm. Teach those who wait to wait with joy. And keep your church ready for the day the Bridegroom comes.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
What the Song is
The Song is a sequence of love poems between a man and a woman, "which is Solomon's" (1:1, ESV). The church long took that title at face value, and modern critics dispute it (CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible, introduction to the Song). Three times the woman charges her friends "that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (2:7; 3:5; 8:4, ESV). Love has a time, and the Song waits for it. By chapter 8 the waiting is over: the ESV Study Bible heads 8:5-14 "The Lovers Join in Marriage," the anxious waiting giving way to relaxed enjoyment (note on 8:5-14).
Contemporary evangelical scholarship reads the Song as what it appears to be — love poetry celebrating marriage between a man and a woman, with the couple "apparently betrothed" (ESV Study Bible, note on Song 1:2-2:17), its wine imagery comparable to Egyptian love poetry (NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on Song 1:2).
How it has been read
The Song's place in Scripture was argued over early. The Mishnah records that "there is a dispute about the Song of Songs," and then Rabbi Akiva's answer: "the whole world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies" (m. Yadayim 3:5). The church gave it the same weight. Eusebius records that Origen "commenced his Commentaries on the Song of Songs" while in Athens and "completed these also, ten books in number" after returning to Caesarea (Ecclesiastical History 6.32). Over the centuries Jewish readers took the book of God and Israel, and Christian readers of Christ and the church.
The flame of the LORD
The Song never mentions God, with a single exception, at the book's climax:
✝️ Song of Songs 8:6-7 (ESV)
6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. 7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
The Hebrew behind "the very flame of the LORD" is שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה (shalhevetyah, H7957a) — שַׁלְהֶבֶת (shalhevet, "flame," H7957) with יָה (Yah, H3050) attached, the short form of the divine name. Translations divide on it. The ESV, NASB and LSB take it as the name ("the very flame of the LORD"; the LSB has "The very flame of Yah"). The NIV ("a mighty flame"), CSB ("an almighty flame!") and NKJV ("A most vehement flame") read the ending as an intensifier. Both are defensible, and the disagreement is about Hebrew idiom.
The translators' own footnotes record the fork. The Legacy Standard Bible offers "A vehement flame" as an alternative, and explains the ending as "the shortened form of Yahweh, found in poetry and praise (e.g. Hallelujah)…". The CSB, which prints the intensifier, footnotes "the blaze of the Lord".
If the name is there, then the one time God is named in the Song, it is to identify the fire in human love as His own. That is a stronger warrant for reading the book theologically than any allegory of its individual images.
The ESV Study Bible draws the same conclusion from the name: "both love and a jealousy to protect marriage are given by God" (note on 8:6).
Jealousy, and the seal
The poem defines the jealousy by pairing it with love, line for line: "love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave." That parallelism makes it resolute devotion, which is how the ESV Study Bible reads it (note on 8:6). The word is קִנְאָה (qinʾah, H7068). It is used of a husband's jealousy (Proverbs 6:34), and it is also the word Scripture uses for the LORD's own zeal: "I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy" (Zechariah 8:2, ESV); "The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this" (Isaiah 9:7, ESV).
"A seal" is חוֹתָם (chotam, H2368), the signet a man pressed into clay to mark something as his. Judah handed his over as a pledge (Genesis 38:18). The bride asks to be that mark on her husband's heart and arm. Paul uses the picture the other way round: God "has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee" (2 Corinthians 1:22, ESV). The direction is reversed and the mark of belonging is the same.
This shows that God is the author of married love, and He guards it with His own zeal. He made it at the beginning (Genesis 2:24), and many waters cannot put it out (8:7).
Reading it toward Christ
Reading the Song toward Christ needs a discipline. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible warns, on the foxes of 2:15, that the image "has given rise to an enormous number of speculative interpretations" and "is not meant to be grist for imaginative interpreters." A book read allegorically line-by-line will yield whatever the reader brought to it, which is why the identification in Ephesians 5:32 carries weight the Song cannot supply on its own.
Paul holds that key. He quotes the first marriage — "the two shall become one flesh" — and says, "This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:31-32, ESV). Paul applies Genesis 2:24 to Christ; the step to every faithful marriage, the Song's included, is an inference from that. The Song preaches Christ by being what it is: a love as strong as death, which is the love with which Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25, ESV).
Arise, come away
✝️ Song of Songs 2:10-13 (ESV)
10 My beloved speaks and says to me: "Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, 11 for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. 12 The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come... 13 The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away."
Winter past, the fig tree budding, and on that evidence: arise and come away. The inference runs the same way as the Olivet Discourse's fig tree — read the season off the tree, and know He is near (Matthew 24:32-33). OpenBible's cross-reference list includes Matthew 24:32 for Song 2:13.
It is still a resonance. Matthew does not quote the Song, and συκῆ (sykē, G4808) is simply the ordinary word for a fig tree, so shared vocabulary proves nothing on its own. What the two passages share is a structure of inference: the season tells you the time.
Discussion Questions
- If שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה (shalhevetyah) in Song of Songs 8:6 does name God, what does it mean that the book's only mention of Him identifies the fire in human love as His?
- Three times the Song says "that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (2:7; 3:5; 8:4, ESV). Why would a book of love poetry keep telling its readers to wait?
- Paul says marriage "refers to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32). What changes when you read the Song after Ephesians 5, and what stays the same?
- Origen wrote ten books on the Song; a modern study Bible warns that its foxes are "not meant to be grist for imaginative interpreters." Where is the line between reading the Song toward Christ and decoding it?
- "Many waters cannot quench love" (8:7). Where do you need to believe that about Christ's love for you this week?
Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path
The point, the passage, the questions and the response, from this study. Print on both sides of two A4 sheets, flipping on the long edge. While this block is open, printing the page prints the sheet; close it to print the study.
Reading the Song of Songs
Song of Songs 8:6-7The point The Song celebrates the love of a betrothed man and woman, most likely calls that love's fire the flame of the LORD, and so treats married love as His gift; Paul names what marriage itself points to: Christ and the church (Ephesians 5:32).
Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Reading the Song of Songs
? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.
Song of Songs 8:6-7 6Set me as a seal over your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as unrelenting as Sheol. Its sparks are fiery flames, the fiercest blaze of all. 7Mighty waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, his offer would be utterly scorned.
Also read:
Reading the Song of Songs
Reading the Song of Songs
1If שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה (shalhevetyah) in Song of Songs 8:6 does name God, what does it mean that the book's only mention of Him identifies the fire in human love as His?
2Three times the Song says "that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (2:7; 3:5; 8:4, ESV). Why would a book of love poetry keep telling its readers to wait?
3Paul says marriage "refers to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32). What changes when you read the Song after Ephesians 5, and what stays the same?
4Origen wrote ten books on the Song; a modern study Bible warns that its foxes are "not meant to be grist for imaginative interpreters." Where is the line between reading the Song toward Christ and decoding it?
5"Many waters cannot quench love" (8:7). Where do you need to believe that about Christ's love for you this week?
Reading the Song of Songs
- Think. Married love is God's gift from the beginning (Genesis 2:22-24), and the Song most likely calls its fire His (8:6). Hold it as holy.
- Attitude. Wait for love's time with joy: "that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases" (Song of Songs 2:7, ESV).
- Do. Pray this week, by name, for your own marriage or for three marriages you know, in the Song's own words, "Set me as a seal upon your heart" (Song of Songs 8:6, ESV), and ask God to keep the flame He lit.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.
Song of Songs 8:7 (ESV)Father, you made love, and you set your own flame in it. Thank you that your Son Jesus loved us with a love many waters cannot quench, and gave Himself up for us. Keep the marriages among us faithful and warm. Teach those who wait to wait with joy. And keep your church ready for the day the Bridegroom comes.
In Jesus' name. Amen.
References & Recommended Reading
- Mishnah Yadayim 3:5 (Rabbi Akiva on the Song of Songs as "the holy of holies"), quoted from
"Mishnah Yomit" translated by Dr. Joshua Kulp, licensed CC-BY, retrieved through
references/build/sefaria.pyfrom the Sefaria-Export dataset. - Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.32 (Origen begins his commentary on the Song of Songs in
Athens and completes it, in ten books, at Caesarea) — Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2,
public domain, from this repo's
references/open-data/scrollmapper-bible-databases-deuterocanonicalchurch-history set. - ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — verse text (ESV) and notes on Song of Songs 1:2-2:17, 8:5-14 and 8:6, quoted briefly with attribution.
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Song of Songs 1:2 and 2:15, quoted briefly with attribution.
- Legacy Standard Bible (The Lockman Foundation / Three Sixteen Publishing) and CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible (Holman) — their texts and translators' footnotes at Song of Songs 8:6, and the CSB Ancient Faith Study Bible's introduction to the Song on authorship.
- NIV, NASB and NKJV — their renderings of Song of Songs 8:6, compared.
- unfoldingWord ULT interlinear alignment and Hebrew Bible (open license) — the Hebrew of Song of Songs 8:6, Genesis 38:18, Psalm 69:9 (Hebrew 69:10), Zechariah 8:2 and Isaiah 9:7 (Hebrew 9:6).
- OpenBible.info cross-reference dataset (CC-BY) — the registered cross-reference from Song of Songs 2:13 to Matthew 24:32.
- The Bride of Christ — the betrothal pattern Ephesians 5 opens onto.