If a dream of God is a delicate thing, how much more so a dream of God the Lover.
—Ellen Davis, Getting Involved with God
The Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis shares the history of the Song of Songs’ inclusion in the Bible:
Here is a book that barely (no pun intended) made it into the Bible, and with good reason. It never mentions God, at least not explicitly, and it mentions a lot of other things we would not expect to find in the Bible. The scriptural status of the Song of Songs is so questionable that the Talmud actually records the great debate…. It was the declamation of Rabbi Akiba, the great teacher, scholar, and martyr of early Judaism, that finally carried the day:
Heaven forbid! No Jew ever questioned the sanctity of the Song of Songs; for all the world is not worth the day when the Song of Songs was given to Israel. For all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies! [1] …
Akiba’s view of the Song’s unique holiness carried not only that day, but well over a millennium of biblical interpretation among both Jews and Christians. The eight chapters of the Song of Songs have generated more commentary than almost any other book of the Bible…. In the thirteenth century, Bernard [of Clairvaux] wrote eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, and he never got beyond chapter three, verse one!
In recent years, however, this tide of interpretation has turned…. The present consensus is that the Song of Songs is a celebration of human sexuality that was included in the canon of scripture by mistake, because the ancient rabbis thought it was about the love of God and Israel….
If the Song is solely a celebration of human love, then nowhere within the covers of the Bible is there a truly happy story about God and Israel (or God and the Church) in love…. If the Song has nothing to do with the story of God and Israel after all, then there is nowhere to turn to hear one partner say, “I love you,” and the other answer right back, “Yes, yes; I love you, too.” For this is the only place in the Bible where there is a dialogue of love.
Davis describes how the Song of Songs overcomes the separation that began in Genesis between God, humanity, and the earth:
The poet of the Song has a dream, and in that dream all the ruptures that occurred in Eden are repaired…. Following carefully and imaginatively where the words of the Song lead, we can share the poet’s and God’s dream of the original harmony of creation restored…. A woman and a man, equally powerful, are lost in admiration of each other—or more accurately, in admiration they truly find themselves and each other. And the natural world rejoices with them.
References:
[1] Mishnah Yadayim 3.5.
Ellen F. Davis, Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cowley Publications, 2001), 65, 66–67, 75.
Image credit and inspiration: Kim MacKinnon, untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Canada, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Gazing lovingly upon the moon reminds us of the loving gaze of the soul toward God and God’s loving gaze in return.
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