O'Donnell The Song of Solomon

An Invitation to Intimacy
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4335-2348-9
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

Reihe: Preaching the Word

Our culture holds the megaphone when it comes to talking about sex today. Yet the church has maintained a reputation for keeping quiet, hesitant to teach people about this sacred aspect of life. The Song of Solomon, however, holds nothing back as it sings loudly about the holy practice of sexuality and pushes us into the conversation with godly theology. While this biblical text has been subject to a broader range of interpretation probably than any other book in the Bible, Wisdom Literature expert Doug O'Donnell offers this comprehensible guide to help uncoil its complexities and solve its riddles. He explores the poetry, themes, and wisdom of this song from a Christocentric perspective, and gives us a profound, rich, and witty reflection that encourages right thinking and behavior. Showing how this 'song of songs' is meant to teach us about biblical sexuality and God's heart for his people, O'Donnell elucidates on the greatest subject of all time-love. Part of the Preaching the Word series.

Douglas Sean O'Donnell (PhD, University of Aberdeen) is the senior vice president of Bible and church resources editorial at Crossway and is a member of the ESV Translation Oversight Committee and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians. He has written over twenty books, including commentaries, Bible studies, devotionals, and a children's curriculum. In addition to his writing, he contributes editorially to several major commentary series, including Crossway's Commentary on the Greek New Testament,  the Concise Bible Commentary, the Conversational Commentary, and the Reformed Exegetical Theological Commentary on Scripture. ?He is the general editor of the ?Knowing the Bible ?series and the liturgies and Scripture editor of The ?Sing! Hymnal.

Autoren/Hrsg.

O'Donnell, Douglas Sean

Leseproben

2

Better Than Wine

THE SONG OF SOLOMON 1:2–4

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.

1:2

EACH DAY BEFORE SCHOOL, I gather my children for Bible time. I read a short passage from the Bible and then ask them some questions based on it. When I began preparing for this sermon series in the spring of 2010, I read through a number of commentaries. One morning at breakfast Evelyn, my six-year-old at the time, came up to me and asked, “What are you reading?” I said, “A commentary. It’s a book that talks about the Bible.” Now, in this commentary there was a verse indented from the rest of the text. Evelyn pointed to that verse and said, “Why don’t we just read that verse for Bible time?” It was Song 1:4, as translated by Richard S. Hess, the commentator. Here’s part of Hess’s translation:

We will indeed rejoice and be happy for you.

We will indeed recall your lovemaking more than wine.1

I told Evelyn we would read something else.

Afterward I was just glad she didn’t approach me the day before when I was reading Ariel and Chana Bloch’s translation of 1:2:

Kiss me, make me drunk with your kisses!2

It’s hard to explain to my six-year-old daughter how the two things that I will do my best in the next decade to teach her to avoid—kissing boys and comparing such kissing to alcoholic consumption—made it into God’s Holy Word, and that they are fitting for our Bible time as a church, but not her Bible time as a child.

In this study, as we move from the tame title—“The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” (1:1)—into the titillating text of 1:2–4, I want you to note that there is “no gradual acclimation” into this Song’s theme.3 The Song does not warm us up to the ideas ahead. Instead it’s a baptism by fire. Twentieth-century film director Sam Goldwyn once suggested that “for a successful film you need to start with an earthquake and then work up to the climax!”4 Well, here’s an earthquake of eros.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! (1:2a)

That’s how it starts! Rupert of Deutz (c. 1075–1129), the medieval Benedictine monk, wrote concerning this verse: “What means this cry, so loud, so startling?”5 Charles Simeon (1759–1836), the famous vicar of Holy Trinity Church Cambridge, said, “The abruptness with which the poem opens is very remarkable.”6 Indeed it was so very remarkable that first-century Jewish rabbis warned the young men of their congregations not to read the Song until they turned thirty. And Christian preacher Adam Clarke counseled pastors, saying, “I advise all young preachers to avoid preaching on Solomon’s Song.”7 This is indeed a delicate and dangerous portion of Scripture. And left to the immature imagination or a godless guide, these inspired words, which were written to make us wise unto salvation—to teach, correct, rebuke, and train us in righteousness (and in love!)—could have the opposite effect.

Yes, what a way to start! It’s an earthquake of eros. But it’s also a “beginning without a beginning,” as Bernard of Clairvaux put it.8 That is, we are introduced to this theme of physical love, but we are not told about the love story. Who is speaking? Who is her man? What is their history? Are they married?

All this is intentional. It’s not that their love story is unimportant; rather it’s that the tone of their love is of primary importance. We will get bits and pieces of their story as the Song unfolds, but here we start with a full-blown flame, a tone that we’re to touch. The earth is shaking. The house is on fire. She wants to be kissed—“Let him kiss me” (v. 2)—and she gets more than just his lips: “The king has brought me into his chambers” (v. 4). And then this short opening scene ends with the choir of virgins rising and singing, “We will exult and rejoice . . . in your love,” or as Hess puts it, “in your lovemaking.” There you have it. Welcome to the Song of Songs. It’s the hottest book in the Bible.

What Is the Poetry Doing?

John Milton said that true poetry is “simple, sensuous, and passionate.”9 If so, the Song is certainly true poetry. And this opening poem (1:2–4) is true poetry indeed! In what follows, let me explain this true poem and then attempt to truly apply it.

The poem begins with a woman’s voice. Thus the ESV, like many translations, places “SHE” above vv. 2–4b and then “OTHERS” above v. 4cde. We know it is a woman talking about a man from the gender of the words used—“Let him kiss me with . . . his mouth.” The speaker of verses 2–4b later describes herself with the feminine adjectives in verse 5, confirming that it is a woman talking about her man.

This woman, about whom we will learn more in the next study, is the main speaker throughout this Song—though we never learn quite as much about her as we would like. (There is poetic intention to the vague character descriptions: This woman and man represent every woman and every man who have ever been in love;10 if you say too much about a character, you limit his or her appeal to a broader audience. This couple appeals to all.) She speaks 53 percent of the time, the man 34 percent, and the others, including the “daughters of Jerusalem,” 13 percent of the time.11 Thus David Hubbard rightly calls her “the star of the Song.”12

This star begins her first solo with a provocative plea. This ancient woman boldly invites intimacy. She is neither passive nor weak; she is neither silent nor shy. Colorfully and with unbridled expression, she voices her longings and sheer delight in the joyful prospect of the wedding night experience. She wants to be kissed, “and not just a formal peck on the cheek from cold,” apathetic lips,13 but a kiss that is warm and long and loving (and perhaps not limited to her lips!).14 “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” (1:2a).

The sequence of the verb “kiss” with the noun “kisses” provides a nice poetic effect, but the context provides clarity as to what kind of kiss she wants. This is not a kiss of honor for a king (“you may kiss my ring”), or a kiss of peace for a fellow believer (the “greet one another with a holy kiss” of the New Testament), or a kiss of friendship or familial affection (“Oh, Aunt Gertrude, so good to see you”). This is a romantic kiss.15 This is the climax of the wedding celebration—“You may kiss your bride”—where the first public kiss turns into many private kisses that continue into the bridal chamber and onto the wedding bed and on through the wedding night.

Next, she moves from his lips to his love. She wants to be kissed, not merely because his kissing is so great, but because his love is so great: “For your love [not, your kiss] is better than wine” (1:2b). With this metaphor of wine she stays very tactile. His love is like something you can touch and taste and smell. Wine is something sweet and aromatic, and the overall effect is intoxicating. That’s what his love is like.

However, unlike other poetry, she does not employ this metaphor of wine (mentioned seven times in this Song)16 merely because it connotes intoxication. An Egyptian love song from 1300 B.C. says,

I kiss her,

her lips open,

and I am drunk

without a beer.17

More recently, Pablo Neruda wrote,

Drunk as drunk on turpentine

From your open kisses.18

Instead of drunkenness, she uses the metaphor of wine to connote pleasure. In the Bible, wine often symbolizes pleasure or the greatest earthly delights, as in Psalm 104:15 where wine is said to “gladden the heart of man,” or Judges 9:13, where “wine,” we learn, “cheers God and men.”19 Jesus first manifested his glory by turning water to wine at a wedding (John 2:1–11); and he showed humanity the joy that he alone can bring to earth, a joy we celebrate in the Lord’s Supper, our “love feast” of bread and wine (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:17–34), and a joy we will celebrate eternally at the Messianic banquet, where the finest wine will never run out.

In verse 3 she continues her praise by moving from a physical description to a nonphysical one, as she did in verse 2, from the way he smells (“your anointing oils are fragrant”) to his character (“your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you”). Sexual attraction, as perfume companies well know, comes as often through our noses as through our eyes. Her lover would have worn perfumes to mask his natural body odor. So the oils of the perfume and the oils of his body likely produced a scent that was uniquely his, a scent that now represents his very person.

When my wife is gone and I’m sleeping alone, I have on occasion rolled over onto her pillow and given it a whiff because her pillow has her smell, which I like. Sometimes in secret, as I’m picking out clothes to wear for Sunday morning, I lift one of her dresses to my nose and take it all in. That’s my Emily. I love her smell.

Now, let’s...