April 25, 2020: Day 84 – Song of Solomon 1

I feel that as we begin to look at this book of the Bible I have to include a rating to ensure that only adults are going to be reading.  It is a beautiful poetic book, along the lines of Lamentations and Ecclesiastes and Psalms, where the author is not depicting historical events but rather scenes of love between a man and a woman which can be taken either metaphorically or literally.  A question many of you may be asking is: why is this in the Bible?  My reading is that it gives us a very complete picture of what it is like to be in love with someone and how that love must include not only a fraternal love but a sensual love as well.  It is an affirmation for husbands and wives that the sexual desires and impulses that we have each other are not negative nor sinful, but rather God ordained.  So…let’s read: Warning, this book of the Bible contains some images that may be deemed as graphic by some.

The first chapter contains a back and forth between a man and woman describing their love for each other.  Notice, the woman in this passage describes herself as being black.  This is where the term black is beautiful comes from, because, well, it is, the Bible says so!  Look at vs. 5.  We also see that this is attributed to Solomon whom we know wrote many things, including Proverbs and potentially Ecclesiastes.  

We find the woman asking where her lover might be as he goes out to tend his flocks.  The man answers that if she wanted to find out she just had to follow the tracks.  There is an interplay between male and female relationships that is not one sided or dominated by one sex or the other, at least in this chapter.  Let’s see if that holds up as we go forward.