III. Conclusion

In this study I have sought to interpret the Song as it might have been understood by a member of the messianic remnant within Israel in the years prior to

the coming of Jesus of Nazareth. I am thus trying to read the Song as it might

have been understood prior to the allegorizations introduced by both the Rabbis and the early Christians. It seems to me that this non-allegorical messianic

interpretation of the Song is simultaneously the most plausible interpretation of

63 Gordis, Song of Songs and Lamentations, 37-38 (italics in the original).

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the Song given its canonical context,64 and the most ‘‘Christian’’ understanding

of the Song, for the early Christians read similar texts messianically (cf. the use

of Ps 45 in Heb 1).

The hermeneutical implications of this study are far-reaching. Roland

Murphy writes: ‘‘Recent critics have been unable to establish an objective

exegetical basis for decoding the Song along the lines of patristic and medieval

Christian exposition. While this does not negate the value of the expository

tradition in its own right, it leaves us without empirical criteria by which to

assess the possible connection between ‘original’ authorial intent and subsequent creations of hermeneutical imagination.’’65 If the non-allegorical messianic interpretation of the Song proposed here is correct, it would appear to

explain the allegorizations produced by both Jewish and Christian interpreters

after the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The Christians ascribed deity to Jesus and

quickly conceptualized him in ways that corresponded with his divine status.66

In their view, the Messiah described by the OT would have his people as his

bride rather than a particular human female. It is difficult to know when the

Rabbis developed their allegorical understanding of the Song.67 Could the

insistence that Yahweh is the king in the Song and the bride is Israel have arisen

as a response to the early Christian interpretation? If so, might the Rabbis have

adjusted their interpretation in light of the claims of the Christians, shifting

their interpretation away from messianic expectation toward the allegorization

of the Song as the story of Yahweh’s love for his people Israel?68

64 It is the Song’s canonical context that invalidates readings of the Song such as Pope’s. Cf.

Murphy, Song of Songs, 97; and for a broader discussion, see Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty, 41-43. 65 Murphy, Song of Songs, 94. Pope notes that the development of the ‘‘normative Jewish interpretation’’ of the Song as an allegory of the love of Yahweh for Israel ‘‘apparently’’ took place

‘‘between the destruction of the Temple, A.D. 70, and the revolt of Bar Kokhba, A.D. 132’’ (Pope,

Song of Songs, 92). Cf. also his discussion of the interplay between church and synagogue regarding

the Song’s interpretation (96-101). Though see n. 67 below. 66 Cf. Roland E. Murphy, ‘‘The Song of Songs: Critical Biblical Scholarship vis-a`-vis Exegetical

Traditions,’’ inUnderstanding the Word (ed. J. T. Butler, E. W. Conrad, and B. C. Ollenburger; JSOTSup

37; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), 68: ‘‘The traditional understanding of the Song complements the

literal historical sense by extending it along certain paths which, as we have seen, can themselves be

illumined by means of modern scholarship.’’ 67 Reuven Kimelman, ‘‘Rabbi Yohanan and Origen on the Song of Songs: A Third-Century

Jewish-Christian Disputation,’’ HTR (1980): 568 n. 1, continued from 567, notes, ‘‘E. Urbach . . .

has argued . . . that the allegorical interpretation cannot be traced back to much before 70 C.E....

But G. Cohen contended, ‘The mere fact that the work was housed in the library [Cave 4––R.K.]

of the Dead Sea Sect is sufficient evidence to warrant the conclusion that the work was not

regarded as an erotic one long before the destruction of the Temple.’ ’’ Thanks for this reference go

to an anonymous reviewer of this article. 68 See Ephraim E. Urbach, ‘‘The Homiletical Interpretations of the Sages and the Expositions

of Origin on Canticles, and the Jewish-Christian Disputation,’’ (ScrHier 22; Jerusalem: Magnes

Press, 1971), 257: ‘‘By comparing the homilies of the Sages with Origen’s interpretation we can

recover, in this instance, a Judaeo-Christian dialogue that began in the third century and continued

in the fourth.’’ I wish to thank Tim Edwards for this reference. Further, in his presentation on ‘‘The

Targum of the Psalms’’ at the meeting of the Tyndale Fellowship, Nantwich, UK, 30 June 2004,

Edwards noted that the only place in Rabbinic literature where Ps 45 is treated as messianic is in the

THE MESSIANIC MUSIC OF THE SONG OF SONGS 343

To understand the Song messianically, we must attend to the impressions

generated by the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, which took their

origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.69 And perhaps the strongest

impression one gets from reading the Song as a unified poem in its canonical

context is of a shepherd-king rejoicing with his bride in a garden. The Song is

certainly ripe with garden imagery, evoking scenes from Eden.70 Interestingly,

what might be the Song’s climactic expression of the restoration of the intimacy lost in Gen 3 is expressed in language that echoes the onset of alienation.

The end of the curse on the woman in Gen 3:16 reads, ‘‘and your desire

(;tqv>t) will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’’ This is reversed

in Song 7:11 (ET 7:10) where we read, ‘‘I am my beloved’s, and his desire

(vtqv>t) is for me.’’71 Even Duane Garrett, who doubts that this is a ‘‘deliberate allusion to Genesis,’’ states when commenting on this verse, ‘‘In the Song,

the ideal of love and marriage is represented almost as though the fall had never

happened.’’72

The Song sings of the son of David,73 who is king,74 in ideal terms.75 In spite

of the alienation that must be overcome, this king—seed of the woman, seed of

Abraham, seed of Judah, seed of David—enjoys uninhibited, unashamed intimacy with his beloved,76 in a garden that belongs to him.77 It would seem that the

burden of proof would be on those who would argue that this, the OT canon’s

sublime Song, is anything other than messianic. This messianic interpretation of

the Song not only explains the Song’s presence in the canon and sheds light on

how it exposits the Pentateuch’s messianism, it also connects the Song to the rest

of OT theology.

Targum on the Psalter. For discussion of Jewish interpretations, cf. also Murphy, Song of Songs,

12-14. 69 I am here paraphrasing the comments of William Wordsworth in his‘‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads,

with Pastoral and Other Poems’’ (1802), in Norton Anthology of English Literature (ed. M. H. Abrams; 2 vols.;

6th ed.; New York: Norton, 1993), 2:151. 70 See Francis Landy, ‘‘The Song of Songs and the Garden of Eden,’’ JBL 98 (1979): 513-28.

Gledhill notes, ‘‘There are a number of literary and thematic parallels between the Song and the

garden of Eden story in Gen 2. Both contain imagery of luscious vegetation and of beautiful and

mouth-wateringly sweet fruit. Both refer to a garden watered by springs or wells. There is joyful

complementarity and union between the man and his wife. There is nakedness and no sense of

shame. The Song seems to look back on and recapture these scenes of primal innocence, and reaffirms the doctrine of the goodness of God’s creation’’ (T. D. Gledhill, ‘‘Song of Songs,’’ in New

Dictionary of Biblical Theology [ed. T. Desmond Alexander et al.; Leicester: InterVarsity, 2000], 217).

Similarly Webb, Five Festal Garments, 30-31. 71 I owe this observation to Dumbrell, Faith of Israel, 282. Dumbrell, however, does not connect

this to OT messianism. Gordis (Song of Songs and Lamentations, 98) refers to this as the lovers desiring

one another, but the text speaks only of the male’s desire for the female, which makes this the true

opposite of Gen 3:16. Similarly Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (OBT 2; Philadelphia:

Fortress, 1978), 160. 72 Garrett, Song of Songs/Lamentations, 99, 246. 73 Song 1:1, 5; 3:9, 11; 8:11, 12. 74 Song 1:4, 12; 3:9, 11; 7:5. 75 Song 3:6-11; 5:10-16. 76 Song 2:16-17; 4:16b–5:1; 6:2-3; 7:11-13; 8:3, 13-14. 77 Song 6:2.

344 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

In the music of the Song of Songs, the messianic remnant of Israel got a

glimpse of the one they hoped would arise to restore them to Eden. In the fragmentation and ruin the nation experienced outside Eden, though the hearts of

her kings were led away from Yahweh by foreign women, the Song sang the

beauty of the king who would piece them back together. It is fitting that the

Song is poetry, for as Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, ‘‘Poetry is a mirror which

makes beautiful that which is distorted.’’78

78 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘‘A Defence of Poetry,’’ (1821) inNorton Anthology of English Literature, 2:757.

THE MESSIANIC MUSIC OF THE SONG OF SONGS 345