How to love God with all your heart. About the Song of Songs The Song of Songs is a poem about love. The main speakers are a man, and the woman whom he loves. At the start, the couple are not yet engaged. The woman is not sure about the man. She twice sends him away. She does not want to share his life. But in the end, she learns to trust him. They marry. She is ready to become a mother. And she is glad to work with him. Her attitudes have become mature. About the man The man is King Solomon. Solomon was a great king, but he was not a proud man. He sincerely wanted to help his people. He worked hard to make their lives better. In fact, he liked to describe himself as a shepherd. A shepherd is a man whose job is to look after sheep. Once, Solomon’s father, David, worked as a real shepherd. Solomon was never a real shepherd. As king, he looked after people instead of sheep. Actually, Solomon was not a good model for a husband. He had many wives. He married these women for political reasons. For example, he wanted his country to be at peace with Egypt. So he married the daughter of the king of Egypt. We do not know whether Solomon really loved all these women. But the woman in the Song of Solomon was different from these other women. Solomon loved her deeply. She really was special to him. The Song of Songs seems to describe the man as if he were a better husband than Solomon. In fact, the man in the Song seems perfect. This is not the only place in the Bible where there is such a description. Psalm 72 is also about Solomon. But the Psalm seems to describe a king who is a better king than Solomon. Both passages are poetry. And both have the same explanation. Although the passages speak about Solomon, they were really describing God. God is like Solomon in many ways. God is the greatest king. God looks after his people. So God is also like a shepherd (Psalm 23). (A shepherd is a man who looks after sheep. God looks after his people, rather than sheep.) And God loves the people who obey him. Especially, God loves the people who trust him completely. And these people are glad to do his work. God’s love is perfect although our love for him is often weak. This is exactly like the man in Song of Songs. Solomon was the greatest king that the people in Israel ever knew. He was richer than any other king. The country was at peace. He achieved many great things and he built impressive buildings. So, he seemed to be the right king to choose as a description of God. But Solomon was certainly not perfect. He made terrible mistakes. At the end of his life, he even served false gods because of his foreign wives. Other books in the Bible describe these errors. But the Song of Songs does not. Instead, it gladly remembers the happy days when Solomon was a young king. At that time, he was loyal to God. And so, Solomon’s love for a young woman reminded everyone about the love of God. read next.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 18:07:03 +0000
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