Song of song It’s a poem of love. It’s rich, erotic and amazing to find in the Bible. From the beginning, its existence sparked debate. With lines such as “My beloved has his hand through the latch hole” (song 5:4), it reads like the Bible slipped between sheets. For critics who frowned at desire, Rabbi Akiba is a Jewish sage of the second century Gregorian calendar – “God should all doubt this sacred text… All Scriptures are holy, but the song of song is holy.” Call it what you do – don’t pretend that the bed is not part of the temple.
For centuries, interpreters have tried to tame it, reading it as an all-talk of the bond between God and Israel. However, poetry resists confinement. That passion doesn’t sit still. It argues that human love (messy, vulnerable, longing) is sacred in itself.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, famous for his moral clarity and wisdom, observed that the distinction between God and human love is false. Love is a divine plant in your heart. It breaks the spell of egocentricity and opens our eyes to others as they really are. Love is not soft, it is radical radixmeans route. It sees the person before us and in us.
The Jews read Song of song Passover, Liberation Festival. The memory of slavery is not intended to be hardened, but to soften us. “You know the soul of a stranger, because you were a stranger.” That memory is not a wall, but a bridge.
Love is embodied. It says to trans and non-binary people: you are cherished, and we are standing with you. For immigrants: You are safe here. To the Israelites and the Palestinians: You are seen, and we hold you in prayer. No one is left behind.
This kind of love is not a prop for culture wars. That’s a promise. It continues to move – imaginatively, but persistently. It is love like the ocean, so that others can intersect. It learns as it goes. It builds one being at a time, a fairer world. All over the globe, it says: you are not alone.
Sex or sexy – song It’s not a support for casual flights. It is a witness to the earth of love. Moralists have been trying to sterilize for a long time. A culture of expertise thrives with prudence. Both reduce sexuality to less than love.
Genesis We teach us that we are made from clay in the image of God. Later traditions sought to separate them: from the soul, from the heart to the flesh. Paul is often criticized, especially in books. Romans and The Galatians. But like the Prophet and Jesus, Paul understood the whole person. His concern was not physical. It was alienation. To him, “flesh” meant cutting off from God. “Spirit” meant reunion between God, others, and the body itself.
Acclaimed critic Harold Bloom argued that Western poets were not in line with erotic power song. He frequently returned to the line. “I seal me in your heart. Love is strong as death, je is as intense as a tomb. That flash is a flash of fire, a fierce flame.”
In Hebrew, the word translated as “je” is closer to “enthusiasm” – consumption power. Sexual love like death can bring us back. But it can also remake us. It opens up something within us that may be God. The Bible cites death as the ultimate boundary. To say that love is as strong as death means that it connects us in such a powerful way.
In Christianity, the arguments deepen. Love is not only as strong as death, but it overcomes death. In resurrection, love changes finality. Love will be the last word.
songIncluding in the Bible is provocation. It is a divinity that seduces us through our own humanity. “Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless him all that is in me, His holy name” (Psalm 103:1).
This poem, which was well understood today, resists the idea of separating the sacred from the body, politics from the individual, and from the body from words. It unstable hierarchies that prefer to control contact. It joins the ancient tale of liberation. Freedom is secured by purity, neither holiness by retreat, nor moral clarity by throwing the first stone.
What begins at the end of longing, not purity, in existence. song It does not save the soul from the body. Bind them. It rejects the notion that sacredness is bodily rich. It places sacred things within reach, not behind the barriers of moral courtesy. Here, the hand reaches again through the latch hole.
Holy holy was never a place of escape from desire, not a place where it was fulfilled.
Notes and reading
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Martin Luther called Song of song Dismissing the all-talk: “We are exploring for interpretation. Solomon must have written it when he was young, chaste, and burning with love.” He read it as a secular romantic song, not a vision of Christ or the church, but had no doubts about its place in the Bible. (Table Talk1530)
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Robert Alter, a well-known biblical scholar, Song of song A celebration of sensual human love, not an entire story, as an erotic poem. He emphasizes the vivid image of the poem and the prominent omission of references to God. It confirms that the Bible accepts the fulfillment of physical experiences and desires as part of the sacred person. – Hebrew Bible: Translation with CommentaryVol. 3 (Text), 2018. See his introduction in particular Song of song337–339.
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Song of song It appears in most Christian lectures, but not as part of the usual Sunday cycle. Prominent voices in conservative evangelical theology criticize the more literal, sensible readings of the text, arguing that such an approach contributes to cultural oversexualization rather than supporting the holiness of the Bible.
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The modern division between literal and fig is anachronistic: the biblical Hebrew, the language of song, is essentially poetic.
Rabbi Akiba – One of the most beloved figures in Jewish history, who is influence and height as the source of continued inspiration. in Mishna Yadim 3:5, he defends to include Song of song In the Bible Canon. Mishna Yadim This is the path of early rabbis teachings.
Rabbi Jonathan Sachs – See for his reflection that “the boundary between God and man’s love is false” and “love is God’s plant in the heart.” Essays on Ethics: Read the Jewish Bible every week (Maggid, 2016). Please refer Contracts and Conversations: Exodus (Maggid, 2010), for his insight into Passover and the moral imagination.
Harold Bloom. “Titan of American Literary Criticism.” See for his claim that the Western poet has not outweighed its erotic power. The Great Rock Shadow: King James’ Literary Appreciation (2011).
With a resurrection. . . We too. (John 14:19)
story – The God of the Oil Field
Tip #218 – Block by Block, City by City
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
