The Song of Songs
The Song of Songs
Its name is the Song of Songs, or the Song of all Songs. In English it is called Song of Songs, meaning that if all songs were considered ordinary speech, this book would be their song or their chant. It was written by Solomon the Wise, in poetry.
This book is the book of love.
From it we understand that God, from ancient times, desired that the relationship between us and Him be a relationship of love. This is clearly shown in what is written in the Book of Deuteronomy: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5). And the Lord Christ said that upon this commandment of love hang all the Law and the Prophets.
The Song of Songs speaks about the love that exists between God and the human soul, or between God and the Church, in the image of the love that exists between a bridegroom and his bride.
The Song of Songs is distinguished by many famous golden verses that preachers constantly use, such as: “Draw me after you, let us run,” “I am black and beautiful,” “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards,” “I sleep, but my heart is awake,” “My beloved is mine, and I am his; he feeds his flock among the lilies,” “His mouth is most sweet, yes, he is altogether lovely,” “Love is strong as death,” “Many waters cannot quench love,” and others.
And in order to understand the Song of Songs, it must be understood in a symbolic way, not with a literal interpretation.
A literal interpretation of the Song of Songs is repulsive and does not agree with the spirit of inspiration, nor with the meaning of the expressions. This book is suitable only for those who are deep in the spirit, who have depth in contemplation and do not take the words with a superficial understanding. It is not for beginners, but for the mature. In the past, no one used to read it except with the permission of his spiritual father.
There are verses in the book that cannot be taken in their literal meaning. An example of this is the saying: “Who is she who looks forth like the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?”
The expression “awesome as an army with banners” cannot be accepted by a beloved woman about herself. How can a woman accept to be described as terrifying or fearsome, when women are supposed to be characterized by gentleness? But the Church can be awesome to Satan and the world, frightening to the powers of evil like an army with banners—meaning with many divisions. The Church was awesome to pagan philosophy, awesome to the priests and worshipers of idols, and awesome to deviation and corruption, because it was pure as the sun. And the expression “fair as the moon” cannot literally agree with the expression “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem.” How can she be black and at the same time fair as the moon?
But the “black” one is the Church of the Gentiles, which did not belong to the fathers and the prophets, lived without a law, without a prophet, without promises, without a relationship with God, and was a stranger to His shepherding. But it became beautiful—beautiful as the moon—through the new faith, through the righteousness of Christ, and through His blood which wiped away her sins. Thus she addresses the Church of the Old Testament and says to its members: “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem.”
The expression “fair as the moon” carries a spiritual and scientific meaning of the utmost depth and beauty. It is known that the moon is a dark body that derives its light from the sun.
Thus this black one, who was without faith and had no beauty in herself, when God cast His light upon her, she became beautiful like the moon—like the moon that has no beauty in itself but derives its light from the sun. The analogy is clear, both in blackness and in beauty: in the blackness that characterizes our sinful nature, and in the beauty that the Lord grants us in His wondrous redemption and in the new nature He gives us through baptism.
The expression “Your eyes are doves” carries the same beautiful spiritual meaning. The eye represents insight, and the dove sometimes symbolizes the Holy Spirit, as it appears in the story of the Baptism, and sometimes represents the burnt offering or the sacrifice that the poor needy person offers to God.
When the eye is taken in the first meaning, this signifies that a person is characterized by a spiritual outlook, by spiritual understanding, as though his eye is the dove that symbolizes the Holy Spirit. Thus all his insight is spiritual, and all his views of various matters are holy views, in the Spirit.
When the eye is taken in the meaning of the sacrifice of the poor needy person, it signifies the contrition of the soul in its spiritual poverty and its offering of itself as a sacrifice to the Lord, as the Scripture commands (Rom. 12:1), with a broken heart, obedient unto death.
And when the two eyes are doves, they represent both meanings together.
With the same latter meaning, we can understand the Lord’s saying: “Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overcome me.”
For the person who belongs to the Lord has two contrite eyes filled with tears, from which the brokenness of the heart speaks. This is the one who struggles with God and overcomes, like Jacob, the broken and weak one, who wrestled with the Lord saying, “I will not let You go unless You bless me,” and he overcame and received the blessing, because “the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Ps. 50).
Thus the weeping soul that seeks God with tears is the one to whom the Lord said in the Song of Songs: “Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overcome me.”
In this way we understand the Song of Songs spiritually, with depth, with its symbols, and not with an immature understanding.
The comparison of the eye to the dove also carries another spiritual meaning. The dove is a symbol of simplicity and purity. Therefore the Lord says: “Be wise as serpents and simple as doves.” The eye that is likened to a dove is thus also likened to simplicity. And Scripture says: “If your eye is simple, your whole body will be full of light.”
So the eye that is likened to a dove symbolizes a simple outlook toward all matters, toward a pure and innocent life far from complexity. Adam, at the beginning of his life, was simple, knowing only good, before his life became complicated and turned into a complex mixture of good and evil after he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Thus in the Song of Songs we find the bride saying about the bridegroom, who is Christ: “His eyes are like doves by the rivers of waters.” That is, His insight is by the Holy Spirit, because the one who receives the Holy Spirit “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water that water others,” since the Holy Spirit abides in him hypostatically. Therefore it was well said “by the rivers of waters,” as Scripture states. And in this way the righteous man in the Psalm was likened to a tree planted by the rivers of waters.
The Song of Songs is not flirtation, but rather an expression of the mutual love between God and the human soul, and it is also an explanation of the attributes of God and the attributes of the soul that loves Him.
God does not want our relationship with Him to be a relationship of formality, or a relationship of fear and terror from His divinity and majesty. Rather, He wants us to be His beloved, because He is “the Lover of mankind,” and He is the One who said: “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”
Everything in God calls us to love Him. All His attributes are beautiful, all His tenderness, compassion, and kindness. For this reason it was said to Him in the Song of Songs: “Therefore the virgins love you.”
By the virgins are meant the souls that have not given themselves to another, that are devoted to God alone and satisfied with His love. These are the virgin souls dedicated to Him, as a poet once said about his wishes and hopes.
The chaste wishes did not cross my mind…
While some people’s wishes are old and worn.
The virgin soul loves Him, the soul that has not given itself to the world nor to its lusts, and whose heart has not been possessed by any human being. As the Apostle Paul said about his preaching: “I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”
For this reason also, the Lord likened the souls that seek Him and strive for His heavenly kingdom to “five wise virgins.” By these virgins are meant all good believers, married or celibate, as long as they have not given their souls to the world.
This virgin soul, betrothed to Christ, the Lord said about her in the Song of Songs: “A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.”
She is a garden containing all the fruits of the Spirit, containing every tree that bears good fruit and offers thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold in the work of the Lord. But she is a garden enclosed; she did not open her gates to every passerby, and she is not loose without a fence. Therefore the psalmist said in the Psalm: “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, for He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you.”
She is a garden enclosed into which no wild beast has entered, which no one has trampled with his feet, which has not had its beautiful flowers crushed nor its sweet fruits tampered with. She is a garden, a paradise of virtues, but enclosed, fortified, with God inside her, and she has not opened her gates to an external enemy.
She is a spring of water and a fountain, containing inner water, a symbol of life and a symbol of the Spirit. As the Psalm says: “The rivers of God are full of water.” But she is a sealed fountain, not open to pollution nor to insects, but sealed. God opens it when He wills and closes it when He wills, in wisdom and in love. He opens and no one shuts, and He shuts and no one opens.
An example of this is the human mouth. You may open it to water people with your knowledge and consolations, or open it for chanting and praise, as you say in the Psalm: “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise.” But at other times you guard yourself against the sins of the tongue and close this mouth, as the psalmist said: “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” Truly it is a fountain, but it is a sealed fountain. It knows when to be silent, just as it knows when to speak.
My brother, when you look at yourself and find that every word you hear enters your mind and your heart and occupies you, stirring your feelings and emotions, and your thoughts become scattered even in your prayer—likewise with every look you see and every touch you touch—then know that you are not a garden enclosed. You are open to all emotions and all external influences; all of them enter you without supervision. Then the Lord cannot say about your soul, betrothed to Him, “My sister, my bride, is a garden enclosed.”
It is also possible that the expression “a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” is said about the virginity of the soul that has given itself to Christ, that she is a virgin sealed for the Lord.
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Fifth Year – Issue Three – 19 October 1974.
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