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excited about the caresses of your spouse? People in love can’t wait to touch each other again…We need
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each other’s affection. When our romance dwindles, so does our affection.”
As a sub-group of the more literal interpretation, some writers pull apart the stanzas in the Song,
denying little connection or movement between them. Michael V. Fox finds comparisons to Egyptian
poetry and removes the Song from any connection to marriage commitments. He translates the word
“love” in 2:1 as “caresses” and explains, “Dodym always refers to sex acts…including more than sexual
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intercourse…She will tell of his kisses and caresses.” The title “king” is “simply a term of affection.
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Tremper Longman does not go as far in seeing sexual metaphors, but he makes the Song general as well.
“The characters of the Song are not specific. That is, the woman is not a particular woman but stands for
all women. The same may be said for the man. These poems invite later readers to place themselves in
the position of the woman and the man.” He also highlights the initiative or aggressiveness of the
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woman that “undermines our stereotypes of ancient gender roles.”

15.2 Objectives

1. You will be introduced to the two ways the Song of Solomon has been interpreted.

2. You will be given a technique using metaphors to decide for yourself how it is to be interpreted.

3. You will read an interpretation that sees three main characters: husband, wife, and interfering king.

4. You will begin thinking about the difference between love and lust.

15.3 The Kisses of his mouth

How are we to decide among all the competing viewpoints? Many translations do a good job
of identifying speakers following the Hebrew text use of male and female, singular and plural
words and endings. The difficulty lies in all the figurative language. “Your name is like
perfume poured out (1:3)” is a simile using “like.” “My own vineyard” in 1:6 is an obvious
metaphor for the woman’s appearance. We wonder how much the author intended us to
take literally and how much he intended as figurative. A quick reading finds many strange comparisons.
How are we to understand as compliments, “Your breasts are like two fawns” (4:5) or “Your teeth are like
a flock of sheep coming up from washing (6:6)”?

We also stumble at the theology behind some of the suggested interpretations. If the Song is about
Solomon and one of his brides-to-be, how can we take the advice positively? If he has sixty queens and
eighty concubines (6:8), is the Bible suggesting we follow him, even if keeping to one spouse, due to his
vast experience? Or if the man in the Song is simply viewed as a “king” because of romance, where do

230 David & Carole Hocking, Romantic Lovers (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 1986), 27.
231 Micharl V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1985), 97.
232 Ibid., 98.
233 Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001), 91.
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