Lamentations, Song of Songs

Wilma Bailey, Christina Bucher

• Publisher: Herald Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780836199789
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Lamentations, Song of Songs by Wilma Ann Bailey and Christina Bucher covers the full emotional register of biblical literature: from the anguished sorrow songs of ancient Israel to the passionate, lyric poems of lovers. Wilma Bailey plumbs the interpretive depths of Lamentations, including questions about authorship, images of God, and depiction of a community's response to exile and its development of an identity in the wake of catastrophe. Christina Bucher then offers multiple perspectives on the Song of Songs and its imagery, characters, and allegorical and literal interpretations by readers and communities across the centuries. Both scholars build sturdy theological scaffolding to help lay readers, pastors, and scholars understand and apply the wisdom contained by these Hebrew writings of desire and exile, love and lament.

Volume 27 in the BCBC series

About Believers Church Bible Commentary Series

Accessible to lay readers, useful in preaching and pastoral care, helpful for Bible study groups and Sunday school teachers, and academically sound, the Believers Church Bible Commentary Series foregrounds an Anabaptist reading of Scripture. Published for all who seek more fully to understand the original message of Scripture and its meaning for today, the series is based on the conviction that God is still speaking to all who will listen, and that the Holy Spirit makes the Word a living and authoritative guide for all who want to know and do God's will.

Song of Songs

Christina Bucher

Preface to Song of Songs

In this commentary, I hope to convince you to read the Song of Songs in two distinct but interrelated ways. First, I hope you will explore the love poetry in this book as an affirmation of human sexuality and the affective experience of being “in love.” As Christians, we have inherited a tradition that both celebrates God’s creation as good and struggles to understand what it means to be created as sexual beings. Within the Christian canon we have a book, the Song of Songs, which can help us reflect on this ambivalence regarding human sexuality. Second, I hope you will also consider reading this book as our spiritual ancestors did, viewing it as a guide for reflection on our relationship with the Divine. By reading this book as a mirror of our relationship with God, we come to know God as Lover and ourselves as Loved.

I have been living with the Song of Songs for a long time, moving back and forth between “simmer” and “boil” (and occasionally turning off the burner completely). As I reflect on the process of researching and writing about the Song of Songs, I am struck by how my assumptions have changed over the years.

When I began the project, I assumed that the book should be read only at the level of its literal meaning. I accepted a commonly held opinion (one that lacks evidence) that the church had covered up the obvious meaning of the book and supplied it with an allegorical interpretation because of its discomfort with the explicitly erotic nature of the poems when read literally. Before the twentieth century, however, few ancients read the book as modern readers do. For some two millennia, Jews have read the poems as describing God’s relationship with Israel, and Christians have read the book as a description of Christ’s love for the church.

As I worked my way into this book, my assumptions were challenged. I found that nonliteral readings of the Song could open up new paths of spirituality for contemporary readers. Reading figurally, Jews and Christians have uncovered levels of meaning in the Song of Songs that relate to their experiences of the Divine. Across the centuries, poets, artists, and devotional writers have drawn upon the Song’s language and imagery to express their understanding of the Divine Being as Lover. The influence of the Song on Christian tradition can go unrecognized today, but we continue to experience its influence on visual art and on music, especially through hymnody.

Other assumptions were challenged. Early in my research, I assumed the book chiefly relates the sexual experiences of the young couple who are the primary voices of the poems and describes, often using figurative language, what these two lovers do when they are together. When I analyzed the Song for a scholarly conference paper, however, I was struck by the book’s emphasis on the experience of the absent lover. On the one hand, the book celebrates the joy of physical intimacy between two people who are in love. On the other, however, it expresses the lovers’ deep despair when they are separated. This led finally to my understanding that this book has much to say about the affective experience of being in love. Even more than describing what lovers do, this book explores how lovers feel—how they are both overjoyed and overpowered by love. At a time when churches look for the Bible’s prescriptive instruction regarding human sexual behavior, this book reminds us to pay attention to how love feels to those who are in love.

In the tenth century, Rabbi Saadia Gaon al-Fayyum wrote that the Song of Songs “resembles locks to which the keys have been lost.” At the beginning of my research on this book, I hoped I would discover the key to the book. Now, however, I conclude that there is no single key and no single lock to this complex book. Rather, there are multiple locks and multiple keys to open those locks. My hope is that by using this commentary as a guide into the Song of Songs, you, as readers, will find a key that unlocks the book for yourselves.

Many people have contributed to this book. Some of them know that they have contributed; others do not. Through their publications on the Song of Songs, two scholars in particular have influenced my work on this commentary. Though her commentary and many scholarly papers, Cheryl Exum helped me appreciate the poetic beauty and the unifying features of the Song. By the time Stephanie Paulsell’s commentary appeared in print, I had already completed much of the first draft of the commentary; however, Paulsell’s theological approach inspired some of the book’s final revisions. I heartily recommend her commentary to readers who are interested in a contemporary reading of the Song of Songs that reflects an embodied spiritual approach to the book. Given the nature of this commentary series, I have kept citations to a minimum. The bibliography gives evidence of the many scholars whose work has contributed to my thinking about this book. Any errors are, of course, my own.

Words of appreciation and acknowledgment are due to others who have supported my work in various ways. In 2001, as a faculty fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, I received released time from teaching and access to resources that supported my research into Anabaptist and Pietist interpretation and reception of the Song of Songs. In 2005, Elizabethtown College granted me a sabbatical leave to research the reception history of the Song of Songs in visual art and music. The librarians at Elizabethtown College supported my need for resources beyond those held at the High Library by quickly supplying me with books and articles through interlibrary loan. Members of the Believers Church Bible Commentary Editorial Council offered important critique and encouragement at several stages in the writing process. Elizabeth Huwiler provided helpful critique of a nearly final draft. David Garber’s careful copyediting improved the manuscript in numerous ways. I am especially grateful for the guidance and support I received from Doug Miller, the Old Testament editor for the series.

Erika Fitz, Bob Neff, and Julia O’Brien read and critiqued drafts of early chapters. I am grateful to have them as conversation partners. Many students have listened and responded with critical questions and suggestions as I tested ideas in the classroom. I mention three former students who gave me additional opportunities to discuss the Song of Songs. Amy Milligan translated German poems by Johannes Scheffler. Randi Stanton Kennedy researched the Song’s reception in the English literary tradition. In his senior honors thesis, John Mackey analyzed the nature of the couple’s relationship. In addition to having conversation partners, writers need to spend a lot of time with the doors to their offices closed. For giving me time alone at my desk, I thank my family—my husband, Ted; sons, Ted Z. and Matt; and brother, Loren—who have waited patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) for the completion of this project. Thank you for asking at regular intervals, “Is the book done yet?”

Christina Bucher
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania

Introduction to Song of Songs

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! (Song 1:2). What a shock awaits the reader who opens the Bible to the first chapter of the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon). Roughly two-thirds of the way through the Old Testament, we encounter eight chapters of love poems, written largely in the form of dialogues between a man and a woman. In these poetic dialogues, the unnamed man and woman express their admiration for one another and their desire to be together. Anyone handed this collection of poems without being told they are from the Bible would certainly take them to be a cele­bration of human sexual attraction and a poetic description of sexual desire. What is a book like this doing in the Bible? And why should we read it?

There are two primary ways of approaching the Song of Songs, and both are important. First, one can read the Song of Songs literally, that is, for the book’s self-evident or plain meaning. At this level, the book has much to say about human sexuality. In fact, this little book of eight chapters has more to say about human sexual experience in all its dimensions than the rest of the Bible combined. It affirms human sexual desire as one significant element of creation. Additionally, the Song of Songs explores the human need for intimacy and the anguish that accompanies the loss of the beloved. From this little book, we gain insight into human sexuality and intimacy.

Second, one can search for a different level of meaning in the Song of Songs, one that explores the relationship between humans and the Divine. This is, in fact, the way the ancients read the Scriptures [Allegorical and Figural Interpretation, p. 258]. For centuries, Christian interpreters have read the Song of Songs as a celebration of divine-human love. Today, we can read the book on two different levels: the literal level (two lovers and how they relate to each other) and a second level (in which the man plays the role of God or Jesus, and the woman plays the role of Israel, the church, or the individual believer).

To appreciate the reading of the ancients, we recognize that they searched continually for deeper meanings in Scripture. Precisely because they valued the Scriptures so highly, they looked for what the Scriptures revealed about God (Barton: 2). An example from Jesus’ teaching might ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Abbreviations
• Pronunciation Guide
• Contents
• Series Forward
• Lamentations, by Wilma Ann Bailey
• Song of Songs, by Christina Bucher