Copyright © 1989 by
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY IN
THE SONG OF SONGS:
RETURN TO
RICHARD M. DAVIDSON
“For in all the
world there is nothing to equal the day on
which the Song of Songs was given to
are Holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of
Holies.”1 Such was
the vision of the exalted importance of the Song of
Songs as
purportedly expressed by Rabbi Aqiba
at the Council of Jamnia
(ca. 90 A.D.). According to tradition,
Aqiba's speech helped confirm
the Song's place in the canon of Scripture.
1. Allegorization of the Song of Songs
Unfortunately, the speech did not
equally serve to confirm a
lofty conception of sexuality. Even the Jewish
rabbis, with their
basically healthy and robust view of sexuality,
apparently had great
difficulty seeing how what seemed to be a purely
secular love song
could be included in the sacred canon. Therefore they
adopted and
developed an elaborate allegorical interpretation
of the Song which
downplayed the literal sense in favor of a hidden,
spiritual mean-
ing. When Aqiba said the Song of Songs was the Holy of Holies,
what he probably had in mind was that the Song was a
detailed
allegory of the historical relationship between
the Divine Presence
(the Shekinah in the Holy of Holies)
and the people of
the Exodus to the coming of the Messiah.2
Thus, Aqiba warned
against taking the Song of Songs only as a human
love song: "He
1 Mishnah,
Yadaim III,
5.
2 See Marvin Pope, Song of Songs, AB (Garden City, NY, 1977),
pp. 89-112, for a
detailed description of the development and
content of the normative Jewish in-
terpretation of the Song of Songs as
pioneered by Aqiba and found full-flowered in
the targum to the Song of
Songs. In the latter the following historical periods
appear to be the allegorical referents of the major
divisions:
1. Exodus and Entry into Canaan-Cant
1:2-3:6.
2. Solomon's Temple-Cant 3:7-5:1.
3. Sin and Exile-Cant 5:2-6:1.
1
2 RICHARD
M. DAVIDSON
who trills his voice in the chanting of the Song of
Songs and treats
it as a secular song has no share in the world to
come."3
Christian allegorists went even further than the
rabbis: They
not only downplayed, but rejected the Song's
literal sense alto-
gether. Influenced by the
pagan Greek philosophies (i.e., Platonic
dualism, stoicism, and the Hellenistic-Roman
cults), they posited a
dichotomy between things of the flesh and things
of the spirit.
Purity
was associated with sexual renunciation, and all expressions
of bodily pleasure--including sexual expression--were
considered
evil. In the Song of Songs all erotic imagery was
allegorized as the
yearning of the soul for union with God, or an
expression of
Christ's
love for his church. As by allegory the Greek philosophers
had succeeded in transforming the sensuous gods of
Homer and
Hesiod into ethereal, spiritual ideals, so the
celibate church theo-
logians were "able by
allegory to unsex the Sublime Song and
make it a hymn of spiritual love without carnal
taint."4
Origen of Alexandria (ca.
185-254), one of the foremost Chris-
tian proponents of the
allegorical method of Biblical interpretation,
wrote a 10-volume commentary of nearly 20,000 lines
on the Song
of Songs. In the prologue he warned that the Song
of Songs is safe
reading only for mature persons no longer
troubled by sexual
desires: "I advise and counsel everyone who
is not yet rid of the
vexations of flesh and blood and has not ceased to
feel the passion
of his bodily nature, to refrain completely from
reading this little
book and the things that will be said about
it."5 Origen further
pleads: "We earnestly beg the hearers of these
things to mortify
their carnal senses. They must not take anything of
what has been
4.
Rebuilding of Temple-Cant 6:2-7:11.
5. Roman Diaspora and Coming of Messiah-Cant
7:12-8:14.
(See Pope, pp. 95-101, for a detailed analysis.)
3 Tosephta Sanhed XII, 10, quoted in Roland K.
Harrison, Introduction to the
Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI,
1969), pp. 1054-1055. William E. Phipps,
Recovering Biblical
Sensuousness (
that Aqiba is opposed to
the use of Canticles as a "vulgar" or "bawdy" song outside
of the context of marital love.
4 Pope, p. 114. For a
discussion of medieval allegorizing of the Song of Songs
and samples of the specific exegesis, see pp.
112-124, and passim.
5 R. P. Lawson, trans., Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and
Homilies,
Ancient
Christian Writers, vol. 26 (Westminster, MD, 1957), pp. 22-23, quoted in
Pope,
p. 117.
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY 3
said with reference to bodily functions but rather
employ them for
grasping those divine senses of the inner
man."6
For fifteen centuries the allegorical method
held sway in the
Christian
church, and the Song of Songs became "the
favorite book
of ascetics and monastics
who found in it, and in expansive com-
mentaries on it, the means to
rise above earthly and fleshly desire to
the pure platonic love of the virgin soul for
God."7
During these 1,500 years only one church leader
of stature
dared to protest against the allegorical
interpretations. Theodore of
Mopsuestia (ca. 350-428) asserted in his commentary
that the Song
should be understood according to its plain and
literal sense--as a
love song in which Solomon celebrates his marriage.
This view
was considered so radical that even his student,
Bishop Theodoret,
considered Theodore's literal interpretation
"not even fitting in the
mouth of a crazy woman."8 The Second
Council of
(553)
anathematized Theodore and condemned his views as unfit
for human ears.
The allegorical interpretation of Canticles
continued its dom-
inance in Roman Catholicism
until very recently and was also
generally accepted among Protestant scholars until
the nineteenth
century. Luther, though breaking formally with
the allegorical
method, still criticized those who attempted to
interpret the song
literally.9 The Westminster
Assembly in the seventeenth century
censured blasphemous Presbyterians who
"received it as a hot
carnal pamphlet formed by some loose Apollo or
Cupid."10 John
Wesley
wrote to his Methodist followers that
6 Origen,
Commentary on the Song of Songs, 1.4,
quoted in Phipps, p. 51. So,
e.g.,
the kiss of Christ = the
Incarnation
the cheeks of the bride =
outward Christianity, good works
the golden chain = faith
spikenard = redeemed humanity
hair like flocks of goats =
nations converted to Christianity
navel of the Shulamite = cup from which God gives salvation
the two breasts = the OT
and NT
7 Pope, p. 114.
8 Johannes Quasten,
Patriology
(
9 Jaroslav
Pelikan, ed. Luther's
Works (St. Louis, MO, 1972), 15: 192-195; cf.
Phipps,
pp. 57-58.
10
Testaments (
4 RICHARD
M. DAVIDSON
the description of this
bridegroom and bride is such as could not
with decency be used or
meant concerning Solomon and Pharaoh's
daughter; that many expressions
and descriptions, if applied to
them, would be absurd and
monstrous; and that it therefore
follows that this book is to be
understood allegorically concerning
that spiritual love and
marriage which is between Christ and his
church.11
2. The Literal Interpretation of the Song of Songs
The allegorical interpretation still has its
representatives,12 but
fortunately it is no longer anathema (at least in
most circles) to
interpret the Song according to its plain and literal
sense. The
break with the traditional allegorical view was
foreshadowed in
John
Calvin. The Reformer maintained that Canticles is both
inspired by God and a song of human love. The
English Puritan
Edmund
Spencer seems to have been among the first to concur with
Calvin,
and two centuries later the German Romanticist J. G. von
Herder
also interpreted the Song as a natural expression of human
love.13 Since the time of
Herder a number of novel interpretations
of the Song have arisen, attracting some
adherents;14 but in recent
decades "there has been a notable trend
toward the interpretation
of the Song of Songs as human love poetry."15
Although diverging
in a number of significant details, contemporary
interpreters gen-
erally do not feel constrained
to "unsex the Sublime Song." H. H.
Rowley,
after a thorough review of the Song's hermeneutical
his-
tory, gives a judgment
consonant with the literal interpretations of
Theodore,
Spencer, Herder, and in harmony with today's prevail-
ing scholarly assessment:
"The view I adopt finds in it nothing but
what it appears to be, lovers' songs, expressing
their delight in one
11 John
Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old
Testament (
1765),
3: 1926, quoted in Phipps, p. 58.
12 See, e.g., A. B. Simpson, The Love-Life of the Lord (
and the notes in the Jerusalem Bible.
13 See Phipps, pp. 59-61; Pope,
pp. 126-127; 131-132.
14 For details on the various
dramatic and dream theories, cultic/liturgical
interpretations, wedding-week theory,
etc., see Pope, pp. 133-192, and Harrison,
Introduction to the OT, pp. 1052-1058.
15 Pope, p. 192.
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY 5
another and the warm emotions of their hearts.
All of the other
views find in the Song what they bring to it."16
If one interprets the Song according to its
plain and literal
sense, then it must be concluded that one whole book
of the OT is
devoted to celebrating "'the dignity and
purity of human love."17 A
whole book extolling the beauty of human sexual love!
How could
Scripture
more forcefully proclaim that human sexuality is not
cheap, ugly, and evil, but beautiful, wholesome, and
praiseworthy!
3. The Song o f Songs, the Garden o f
and
the Nature of Sexuality
In the Song of Songs we have come full circle,
in the OT, back
to the Garden of Eden. Several recent studies have
penetratingly
analyzed and conclusively demonstrated the
intimate relationship
between the early chapters of Genesis and the
Song of Songs.18 In the
"symphony of love," begun in
Canticles
constitutes "love's lyrics redeemed."19 Phyllis Trible sum-
marizes how the Song of Songs
"by variations and reversals creatively
actualizes major motifs and themes" of the
Female and male are born to mutuality and love.
They are naked
without shame; they are equal
without duplication. They live in
gardens where nature joins in
celebrating their oneness. Animals
remind these couples of their
shared superiority in creation as
well as their affinity and
responsibility for lesser creatures. Fruits
pleasing to the eye and tongue
are theirs to enjoy. Living waters
replenish their gardens. Both
couples are involved in naming;
both couples work....
Whatever else it may be, Canticles is a
commentary on Gen. 2-3. Paradise
Lost is Paradise Regained.20
16 H. H. Rowley, The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays on the
Old Testa-
ment (
17 E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids, MI, 1949),
p. 336.
18 See especially Phyllis Trible, "Depatriarchalizing
in Biblical Interpretation,"
JAAR 41 (1973): 42-47; idem,
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (
1978),
pp. 145-165; Francis Landy, "The Song of Songs
and the Garden of Eden,"
JBL 98 (1979): 513-528; and
idem., Paradoxes
of
the Song of Songs (Sheffield, Eng., 1983), pp. 183-265.
19 Trible,
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p.
144.
20 Idem, "Depatriarchalizing," p. 47.
6 RICHARD
M. DAVIDSON
The Song of Songs is a return to Eden, yet the
lovers in the
Song
are not to be equated with the pre-Fall couple in the
Garden.
The
poetry of Canticles reveals the existence of a world of sin and
its baleful results:: There are the angry brothers
(1:6), the wet winter
(2:11),
the "little foxes that spoil the vineyards" (2:15), the anxiety
of absence from one's beloved (3:1-4; 5:6-8; 6:1),
the cruelty and
brutality of the watchman (5:7), and the powerful
presence of death
(8:6).
Yet the lovers in the Song are able to triumph over
the threats
to their love.
In parallel with Gen 2:24, the Song depicts the
ideal of "wo-
man and man in mutual harmony after the fall."21
The theology of
this inspired reflection and elucidation of the
divine ideal for post-
Fall
sexuality may be discussed under the major subheadings that
emerged in my treatment of sexuality in Gen 1-2
in a previous
article.22
Sexuality Is Good
First, underlying the entire Song is the same
high doctrine of
creation that forms the backdrop for biblical
wisdom literature in
general.23 Without explicitly mentioning that God "has
made every-
thing beautiful in its time" (Eccl 3:11), the
author describes the
beauty of God's handiwork made during the six days of
creation
week in the lovers' natural surroundings: brilliant
light, fountains
and springs, many waters, mountains and hills,
pastures and vine-
yards, trees and flowers, sun and moon, birds and
animals.24 Like-
21 Ibid.,
p. 48.
22 See Richard M. Davidson,
"The Theology of Sexuality in the Beginning:
Genesis
1-2," AUSS 26 (1988): 5-24.
23 The majority of scholars
represented, e.g., by James Crenshaw, ed., Studies
in
Ancient Israelite Wisdom (New York, 1976), p. 5,
would exclude Canticles from
discussion of wisdom literature; but Roland E.
Murphy, The Forms of the Old
Testament Literature,
vol. VIII: Wisdom Literature: Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Canticles,
Ecclesiastes, Esther (Grand Rapids, MI,
1981), p. xiii, argues that although not
technically wisdom literature, the Song
"emphasizes values which are primary in
wisdom thought (cf. Prov.
1-9)." Murphy, ibid., cites a number of scholars
who are
becoming "open to ascribing the preservation
and transmission of these poems
[Canticles] to the sages of
wisdom literature, see, e.g., Crenshaw, Studies, pp. 22-35.
24 The six days of Creation are
profusely represented:
1.
Light: "flashes of fire" (8:6) of YAHWEH--cf. below,
p. 18.
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY 7
wise, sexuality is assumed to be a creation
ordinance, given by God
for man to enjoy.25 In lofty love lyrics
"the voices of the Song of
Songs
extol and enhance the creation of sexuality in Gen. 2."26
Sexuality Is for Couples
Secondly, the man and woman are a duality, as in
the be-
ginning--a lover and his beloved. Hypotheses
which suggest a
lovers' "triangle" in the Song, with a
rustic shepherd and King
Solomon
vying for the same Shulamite, are not convincing.27
Furthermore,
recent studies provide strong evidence for the unity of
the Song, rather than its being a collection of
unrelated love poems.
Roland
Murphy points to recurring refrains, themes, words, and
phrases;28 J. Cheryl Exum analyzes numerous structural indications
of "a unity of authorship with an intentional
design";29 Michael
Fox
elaborates on four factors that point to a literary unity: (1) a
network of repetends
(repetitions), (2) associative sequences, (3) con-
sistency of character portrayal,
and (4) narrative framework;30 and
William
Shea seems to clinch the case for unity by his
persuasive
2. Water and air: springs of fresh water,
fountains or wells, many waters,
wind (North
and South)
3. Land and vegetation: mountains and hills
(
Gilead, Hermon,
cedar, pine,
apple, fig, pomegranate, nuts); fragrances (nard, saffron, cala-
mus,
cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, aloes); etc.
4. Luminaries: sun, moon
5.
Birds (and fish): turtledoves, ravens
6. Animals (and man): gazelles, young stags,
hinds of the field, flocks of
goats, sheep,
lions, leopards, etc.
25 See below, pp. 18-19, for a
discussion of the divine origin of love in the Song.
26
Trible, God and
the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 145.
27 The "Shepherd"
hypothesis argues for three characters: the Shulamite,
her
shepherd-lover, and King Solomon, who
carries the Shulamite by force to his harem
and, after unsuccessfully attempting to seduce her,
allows her to return home to her
rustic lover. This view (popularized by H. Ewald and accepted by S. R. Driver, C. G.
Ginsburg,
and many others) is discussed (with major proponents) and critiqued in,
e.g.,
Harrison, Introduction to the OT, p.
1054; cf. Pope, pp. 136-141.
28 Roland E. Murphy, "The
Unity of the Song of Songs," VT
29 (1979): 436-443.
29 J. Cheryl Exum, "A Literary and Structural Analysis of the Song
of Songs,"
ZAW 85 (1973): 47-79.
31 Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love
Songs
(Madison,
WI, 1985), pp. 209-222.
8 RICHARD M. DAVIDSON
demonstrations of an overarching
chiastic structure for the entire
Song.31 It is in a unified
song, therefore, that the love relationship
between a couple--man
and woman--is extolled and celebrated.
Sexuality Is Egalitarian
Third, the lovers in the Song are presented as
equals in every
way. Canticles "reflects an image of woman and
female-male rela-
tions that is extremely
positive and egalitarian."32 The keynote "of
the egalitarianism of mutual love"33
is struck in Cant 2:16: "My
beloved is mine and I am his." The Song of
Songs begins and
closes with the woman speaking. The woman carries the
majority
of the dialogue (81 verses to 49 for the
man)." She initiates most of
the meetings and is just as active in the
lovemaking as the man.
Likewise,
she is just as eloquent about the beauty of her lover as he
is about her. The woman also is gainfully employed
as a shep-
herdess and vineyard keeper. In
short, throughout the Song she is
"fully the equal of the man."35 As in Gen 2,
she is man's "part-
ner . . . , ‘the one
opposite him.’"36
Feminist
readings of the Song of Songs have tended to argue
for a reversal of the divine judgment given in Gen
3:16, so that the
"Return
to
male-female relationship.37 However,
attempts to contrast the "re-
covery of mutuality" in
the Song with the "male power" of Gen
3:1638
misconstrue both the nature of the divine judgment and the
meaning of mutuality. In my discussion of Gen
3:16 in a previous
article,39 I set forth evidence
that God's judgment was prescriptive,
31 William H. Shea, "The Chiastic Structure of the Song of
Songs," ZAW 92
(1980):378-396.
32 Leonard Swidler,
Biblical Affirmations of Women (
33 Ibid.
34 The count may vary,
depending upon the interpretation of the sometimes
ambiguous first-person statements.
35 Trible,
God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p.
161.
36 Foster R. McCurley, Ancient
Myths and Biblical Faith: Scriptural Transforma-
tions (
37 See especially Trible, "Depatriarchalizing,"
p. 46; idem, God and the Rhetoric
of Sexuality, pp. 159-160.
38 Ibid.
39 Richard M. Davidson,
"The Theology of Sexuality in the Beginning: Genesis
3,"
AUSS 26 (1988): 121-131.
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY 9
not simply descriptive. It did not portray the
perverted use of male
power that would result from sin, but rather it gave
the divine
normative pattern for the achievement of true
mutuality after the
Fall.
This pattern did not nullify the full equality ("one-fleshness")
between husband and wife set forth in Gen 2:24,
since the latter
verse, as we noted, is specifically addressed to
post-Fall conditions.
Yet
in the context of sin, God appointed the husband to "rule"
(masal)--in
the sense of "protect, love, care for," rather than "subju-
gate, coerce, tyrannize"--as a blessing for the
maintenance of union
and preservation of harmony within the marriage
setting.
In the Song of Songs, as we have already noted,
the voices
repeatedly speak of post-Fall conditions which
impinge upon the
couple's relationship. The way of "woman and
man in mutual
harmony after the fall"40 is
likewise portrayed in imagery conso-
nant with the divine norm
given in Gen 3:16. Note in particular
Cant 2:3:
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my
beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his
fruit was sweet to my taste.
Francis
Landy has not failed to catch the intent of the
imagery:
The apple-tree symbolizes the Lover, the male
sexual function in
the poem; erect and
delectable, it is a powerful erotic metaphor. It
provides the nourishment and
shelter, traditional male roles--the
protective Lover, man the
provider....41
Cant
8:5 seems to continue the apple tree/protector motif:
Who is that coming up from the wilderness
leaning upon
her beloved?
Under the apple tree I awakened you....
Thus the Song of Songs has recovered the true
"lyrics" of the
"symphony of love" for post-Fall sexual partners. In the
garden of
Canticles
the divine plan for man's post-Fall role in the sexual
relationship--masal,
"to protect, love, care for"--is restored from
its accumulated perversions and abuses outside the
Garden of Eden.
40 Trible,
"Depatriarchalizing," p. 48.
41 Landy,
"The Song of Songs," p. 526.
10 RICHARD
M. DAVIDSON
That
this masal
is the "rule" of love and not tyrannical power is
made explicit in the Song by attributing to the man
the "strong
desire" (tesugah) which is connected with the woman in Gen 3:16.
As
in the divine judgment God promises to the woman that still
"Your
desire (tesugah)
shall be for your husband," now in the
Song
the woman says, "I am my lover's and for me is his desire
(tesugah)"
(7:10). She thus joyfully acknowledges the mutuality of
love that inheres in the ideal post-Fall
relationship even as she is
leaning upon, and resting under the protecting
shadow of, her
lover.
Sexuality Is Related to
Wholeness
Closely related to the motifs of
equality/mutuality, we note,
fourthly, the concept of wholeness in sexuality.
That concept is
highlighted by "one of the key themes in the
Song"--"the presence
and/or absence of the lovers to each other."42
Throughout the
Song
the fact of physical closeness is obviously important as the
lovers speak and cling to each other: "His left
hand is under my
head, and his right arm embraces me" (2:6;
8:3). Even more sig-
nificant is the feeling of loss
and anxiety in the partner's absence.
Already
in Cant 1:7 the desire of the beloved for, a
rendezvous with
her lover is clear ("Tell me, you whom my soul
loves, where you
pasture your flock ... ?" ), but the motif
reaches its zenith at the
matched sections of the chiasm43 in
which the dreaming woman
searches anxiously for her lover:
Upon my bed at night
I sought him whom my
soul loves;
I sought him but found him not....
"Have you seen him
whom my soul loves?"44
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned
and gone....
42 Roland E. Murphy, "A
Biblical Model of Human Intimacy: The Song of
Songs,"
in Concilium: Religion in the Seventies, vol. 121: The Family in Crisis or
in Transition, ed. Andrew Greeley (New York, 1979), p.
63.
43 See Shea,
pp. 388-389, 396, for structural analyses of the dream sections (3:1-5;
5:2-8).
44 Cant 3:1-3 (cf. vss. 1-5).
THEOLOGY OF SEXUALITY 11
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he
gave no answer.45
The
absence motif serves to heighten the meaning of presence.
Lovers
need each other to be whole. In the Song man and woman
each appears as an individual--capable, independent,
self-reliant--
and at the same time they have become "bone of
one's bone, flesh
of one's flesh."
Sexuality Is a
Multidimensional Relationship
From the aspect of wholeness and solidarity we
are led to a
fifth insight into the nature of sexuality:
Paradisiacal sexual love
means a multidimensional relationship. The relational
symphony
of the sexes in the Song of Songs is a "live
performance" of the
"score" set for them in Gen 2:24. As in Gen 2 man
"leaves" (i.e., he
is free from all outside interferences in the
sexual relationship), so
in Canticles the lovers are unfettered by parental
prearrangements46
or political promises." They are in love for
love's sake alone. They
are free for the spontaneous development of an
intimate friend-
ship.48 In the freedom from
outside interferences the couple may
find mutual attraction in the physical beauty49
and inward character
qualities50 of each other.
45 Cant
5:6 (cf. vss. 2-8).
46 Numerous references in
Canticles are made to the mothers of the lovers (1:6;
3:4,
11; 6:9; 8:1, 2, 5), indicating the closeness of ties that continue between
parent
and son (3:11)/daughter (3:4; 8:2). But in all of
this there is nothing of the parents'
interfering with the lovers' freedom of choice and
action. Thus both the fifth
commandment and the "leaving" of Gen 2:24
are upheld.
47 I concur with F. Delitzsch, Commentary
on the Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes
(
text, the Shulamite is not
the daughter of Pharaoh (as maintained by many), but "a
country maiden of humble rank, who by her beauty
and by the purity of her soul,
filled Solomon with a love for her which drew him away
from the wantonness of
polygamy, and made for him the primitive idea of
marriage, as it is described in
Gen.
3:23ff., a self-experienced reality."
48 The Shulamite
is considered as close as a sister by her lover (4:9; 5:1; etc.), and
she in turn can say of him, "This is my
beloved and he is my friend" (5:16).
49 For a discussion of the
mutual, frank, and erotic expression of praise for each
other, see below, p. 17.
50 See Thorleif
Boman, Hebrew
Thought Compared to Greek (New York, 1960),
pp.
77-89, for a discussion of how the imagery used in praise of bride and groom in
12 RICHARD
M. DAVIDSON
As in the Genesis model, in which man and woman
are to
"cleave" to each other in a marriage covenant, so the
Song of
Songs
climaxes in the wedding ceremony. The chiastic structure of
the unified Song reveals a symmetrical design
focused upon a
central section which describes the wedding of
Solomon and his
bride.51 Cant 3:6-11 clearly portrays the wedding
procession of
Solomon "on the day of his wedding"
(3:11).
What follows in Cant
4:1-5:1
appears to encompass the wedding ceremony proper.52 Only
here in the Song does Solomon address the Shulamite as his "bride"
(kallah, 4:8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 5:1).53
The groom praises the bride,
paralleling the Arab wasf
of modern village weddings in Syria.54
Following
this come the central two verses of the entire chiastic
structure of the Song (4:16, 5:1), which seem to
be the equivalent to