Considering we had a verse from this book of the Bible on the front of our wedding order of service, and considering that I did a reading from this book at a wedding I attended at the weekend, I don’t know as much about it as I should!

I know there’s a lot of metaphor and innuendo in Song of Song (also known as Song of Solomon). The content of this book may be surprising initially, but every other element of human life is covered in the Bible, so it makes sense that sex and relationship are in there too!

Again, I turn to The Bible Project for a bit more insight. The Bible Project puts it more succinctly than I did; this book is ‘well known but little understood’.

It doesn’t have much structure, it isn’t all that clear who the author is. It flows and builds, and is best to be enjoyed as a whole rather than torn apart in an attempt to understand it. A bit like love, really! And this book is all about love. The man and woman use metaphor to describe their romantic love for each other, although, elements of this book could be used to describe other kinds of love as well.

Anyway, I suppose it’s a book to let wash over you. It’s a book to let your mind dance over and enjoy, rather than grapple with intellectually. When in doubt, quote Albus Dumbledore, I say. In the Harry Potter books, Dumbledore say that in the department of mysteries there is a locked room with a force ‘more wonderful and terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature’.

My favourite verse in this book is Song of Song 8.4: ‘I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases’ – advice I wish I had heard and taken much sooner!

Onto Isaiah.

Thanks to Raquel Carmo on Pixabay for the blog banner.