A Commentary in Simple English on Song of Songs

The Seventh Poem: Chapter 8:5-14

This is the last of the seven poems. It is short but it is not easy to see how it all fits together.

Verse 5 (First two lines)

This is the first part of this poem. In 3:6 the royal bride came up from the desert to Jerusalem. She rode in her chair, but we could not see her at all. Curtains hung round her. Now the young woman and the man she loves walk together. They come from the desert. We can only guess that they are on their way to Jerusalem.

Verse 5 (The rest of the verse)

This is the second part of this poem. We seem to move from town back to the country. The young woman speaks about the man that she loves. She woke up his desire for her under an apple or apricot tree. This, it seems, is where the lover was born.

Verses 6 and 7

These verses are the third part of the poem. The fifth part is in verses 11 and 12. There is a great deal to think about in these verses.

So first, we have pictures of a ‘seal’. In Old Testament times any man who was important would have a ‘seal’. This might be a stone with the man’s name cut into it. A seal would be of great value. We know that King Hezekiah would use his seal instead of writing his name. There would be a lump of mud or clay on a letter or some other writing. The seal would be pressed into the clay. Then the lump of clay became hard and it showed who owned the letter. We call the lump of clay a ‘bulla’. We still have quite a lot of these. Some of them have names on them, which we know from the Bible. There were other ways in which people used their seals to show who owned things.

The owner might wear his seal on a string round his neck. Then his clothes would hide it. Or he might wear it on a ring on his finger, or further up his arm. Then everyone could see it.

So the girl first asks the man to put her over his heart like a seal. Yet that is not enough for her. The seal could not be seen there. She wants everyone to see and know that she belongs to him. So she wants him to wear the seal on his finger, where people could see it.

Each of Solomon’s many women could say: ‘I am his’. None of them could say: ‘He is mine’. (See 6:32.) That is what the young woman wanted. She wanted to be able to say: ‘He is mine and I am his. I do not have to share him with anyone else’. Paul could say: ‘He loved me. He gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20). It is as though when Jesus died on the cross, it was all for me. There is so much good for us in his death that it is as though I do not have to share it with anyone else. Yet I do share it with millions of other Christians today. The love of Jesus proved to be stronger by far than death. Death is strong. When death calls, none of us can say ‘No!’ Yet even the love we have for Jesus can be stronger than death. Love may be left, but it will never be lost. (Rev 2:4).

What verse 6 says about ‘jealousy’ is probably this. A woman who really loves a man will not want to share him with other women. She will be ‘jealous’ of them, and jealousy is a hard feeling. It is not willing to give way. This is one very good reason why marriage should be between one man and one woman. When a man has more than one wife, the ‘hard’ feelings of the women are something that a man cannot understand. Then this verse says that jealousy burns like lightning. It is like a mighty flame or like ‘the flame of the Lord’. (See footnote in NIV.) This is almost the only place in the book where anyone has found the name of God. Even here, it may only mean ‘a very strong flame’.

Verse 7 adds that even the seas of the world cannot drown love. Flooded rivers cannot carry it away. Then it is true that we cannot buy or sell love.

The last part of the verse gives us another picture. Here is a man who really loves a woman. She does not love him. He wants to give her all his money. He thinks that she will love him then. There is the paper. It says what he will do. He puts his seal on it! People would just laugh at him. They would know that he was silly.

Verses 8-10

This is the middle part of the poem. We would expect it to be the most important part. In verses 8 and 9, the girl’s brothers speak. Then in verse 10 she gives her answer. In verse 7 people made fun of a man who thought that he could buy a woman’s love. Now (verse 8) the brothers make fun of their young sister. They did this before. (See 1:6-7.) It is not easy for them to see that she is a young woman now. She is no longer only a girl. They want to know what to do if a man asks her to marry him.

So they say: ‘She is like a city. Sometimes an enemy army comes to attack a city. We must make her walls strong. We must do more to make the gates strong too’. In other words, if a man asks her to marry him, they want her to say ‘No!’

In verse 10 the girl speaks. She is sure of herself. This is rather like 1:5. She says: ‘Yes, I am strong. I am strong enough to keep an enemy out!’ Yet the best thing the people in the city could do might be to talk to the enemy. Peace may be best for all. So the girl will not fight the man who wants to marry her. She wants ‘peace’. He did not quite expect this! She wants to make him really happy in every way. This is contentment. This is what the word ‘shalom’, the Hebrew word for peace, means here.

Now we can see that this is important. Before and after this section, there are verses about belonging. Yet there is more to love and marriage than a couple belonging to each other. There should be peace in their lives. They should be happy together. They should be ‘content’ with each other.

Now this is true about the Christian and his Saviour. We should be able to say: ‘I am his and he is mine’. Yet our loves should bring joy to him as we love him and obey Him. And Christ will bring love and peace to our hearts.

The words of the brothers in verse 9 are so like the spirit in the world today. People want us to say ‘No!’ to God and to his love. They want us to be strong against him. Instead we should be like the girl. She goes out to the man she loves. It may be she that puts her arms round him. She makes her peace with him, and this is good for them both. So we should go out to Christ and make peace with him. It is for our good and his glory.

Verses 11 and 12 So we come to the fifth part of this poem. It is about owning things just as verses 6 and 7 were. There the seal was a picture of the right to own things. Here we have the difference between two kinds of people. One is those who have to give away most of what they have. The other kind has the right to keep all that they have. We can see that in verse 12 the speaker is the young girl. She may speak in verse 11 also but this may rather be a ‘chorus’ or a group of people.

Solomon is the king who lives a long way away. Baal Hamon may be the name of a place, but the name means ‘Lord of a crowd’ or here ‘Lord of a lot of things’. Some people like ‘Own-a-lot’. [8.1] No doubt Solomon had plenty of other vineyards. He took most of the crop as rent. He did not leave much for the people who did all the work. We should think not of ‘shekels’ but of ‘pieces’ of silver. No one used coins in Solomon’s time.

(Verse 12) We remember 1:6. There the girl said that she had not kept her vineyard. She had not looked after her vineyard as well as she should have done. Now instead she will give her vineyard. The vineyard is a picture of the girl here. She is ready to give herself to the man she loves. She will keep nothing back from him. She has the right to give herself, and no one else can say that he ought to share her.

Verse 13 This is part six of this poem.

It is the man who speaks now to the girl. She is in the garden with her friends. It seems that he is outside and he calls to her.

This has often been thought of as a picture of Christ and his church. It is good to talk with other Christian people. Yet we must not be so busy that we forget to make our voice heard in heaven. There are prayer meetings where people spend so much time in talk to each other that there is little time left for prayer. Christ wants to hear our prayers.

Verse 14

This is the last part of the poem, and of the book. In 8:5 the two lovers came up from the desert. Now it seems they will go up again. They go quickly up from the garden. They leave the ‘friends’ there. Together they leap up into the mountains like deer. (See 2:8,9 and 17; 3:5.) [8.2]

There is one last very beautiful picture here for us. In verse 13, the Christian is in the garden, which is the church in this world. Christ comes and calls the Christian to join him. Together they leap up to the hills of light and glory. This is what death should mean for each one of us.