Song of Solomon / Introduction

Discovering a Hidden Gem

If you have ever tried to read through the Bible—just doing a life journal or a Bible-in-a-year reading plan—you know how the journey usually goes. You get motivated through Genesis, and things go pretty well. Then you get to Exodus, and of course, you’ve seen the movie, so you’re fine there. Then you hit Leviticus, and things get a little dicey. But if you continue to press through, right in the middle of the poetry in the center of your Bible, you come across a little eight-chapter book called the Song of Solomon.

It was actually in 1993 when I first read that book, and honestly, I had no clue what it was about. As a guy who was relatively new to the things of God, I was kind of impressed that the Bible would even talk about the issue of sexuality, but I also felt a little naughty reading through it. I thought, Well, maybe that’s not what this is about. Certainly, every book of the Bible has to be about God, or about Jesus, or some sort of redemptive theology.

Then you begin to realize that God placed this little book tucked right in the middle of the Scriptures as a guideline for the most important earthly relationship we will ever have: the relationship between a husband and a wife.

Even a casual reading brings all kinds of questions to mind. How in the world could Solomon have written something so pure and beautiful, considering the fact that, in many ways, he had severe moral failings in his relationships? How in the world could God speak so graphically about sexuality? In this book, you watch a couple undress on their honeymoon night. You see them interacting with deep romantic intimacy multiple times.

Those questions intrigued me for years. Then in 1995, while I was in Denton, Texas at Denton Bible Church, I heard this book exposited verse by verse by Tom Nelson. Tom Nelson is the senior pastor there, and in many ways, he is my hero for unpacking this book with such clarity and detail. What I want to do in our time together is walk through the backstory and the interpretive framework of this book. We want to lay out the foundation and answer some of the biggest interpretive questions so that we can approach this series with clarity and confidence.

The Nature of Wisdom Literature

To understand the Song of Solomon, we have to begin with what kind of literature it is. Song of Solomon is wisdom literature, written in the form of Hebrew poetry. Because of that, we have to put aside the purely linear, logical mindset we might use when reading a book like Romans, and we have to engage our creative side to think the way a poet thinks.

In the ancient Hebrew mind, wisdom literature addressed the major philosophical questions of life. If you wanted to understand the sovereignty of God in the face of suffering and evil, you read Job. If you wanted to understand the practical essentials of wisdom in daily living, you turned to Proverbs. If you wanted to wrestle with the ultimate meaning and purpose of life under the sun, you opened Ecclesiastes. But if you wanted to understand marital love, romance, intimacy, sexuality, and God’s design for a husband and a wife, you read the Song of Solomon.

Historically, some scholars suggest that this book was traditionally read during the Passover feast. Initially, that might sound surprising. But when you think about it, Passover is one of the most sacred religious holidays for the Jewish people. Reading the Song of Solomon during that season reaffirmed that faith, the covenant sacrifice of Passover, and the foundational root of the godly family were absolutely central to the identity of the people of God.

The title “Song of Solomon” is a Hebraism meaning “the loveliest song” or “the song of songs”—the most superlative of all songs. Some Bibles call it the Song of Songs, and historical Latin translations refer to it as the Book of Canticles, from the Latin word for song.

Confronting the Author: Solomon’s Brokenness

We need to deal honestly with the issue of authorship. We know from Scripture that Solomon had major moral failures. It is a tragic pattern throughout Scripture that the sins of the fathers often repeat in the children. David struggled with moral failure, and Solomon followed right in his footsteps. The biblical historical record tells us that Solomon eventually amassed a harem of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.

How could a man with a thousand women in his harem have any credibility when speaking on marital love, romance, and the beauty of exclusive fidelity?

There are a couple of key insights to consider. First, most scholars believe Solomon wrote this book early in his life, long before his polygamy truly began. In 1 Kings, we read that his political alliances began when he married Pharaoh’s daughter.

1 Kings 3:1 (NASB)

Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the LORD and the wall around Jerusalem.

Solomon increasingly formed alliances by marrying foreign queens, noblewomen, and priestesses to expand his kingdom and secure political power. Yet the Shulamite woman in the Song of Solomon is not royalty; she is a humble peasant girl working in the vineyards. She is a commoner. Most scholars believe that before political ambitions and rampant polygamy corrupted his life, this was his first, true, authentic love.

Furthermore, we know from the historical books that Solomon’s life ended in spiritual compromise and darkness. When his son Rehoboam took the throne, the elders pleaded with him to lighten the heavy burdens Solomon had placed on the people, but the young men urged him to rule with even greater severity. There is a sweetness, innocence, and moral purity in the Song of Solomon that simply would not fit the dark, heavy climate of Solomon’s later years.

The natural chronological flow of Solomon’s writings is that he wrote the Song of Solomon in his youth, collected and authored Proverbs throughout his lifetime, and penned Ecclesiastes near the end of his life, concluding with the sober realization of where true life is found.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 (NASB)

The conclusion, when all has been heard, [is]: fear God and keep His commandments, because this [applies to] every person.

We also have to remember how consistently God uses broken people throughout Scripture to communicate His truth. How is it that David—a man guilty of adultery and murder—is called a man after God’s own heart? It only makes sense when you realize that God has always worked through flawed human beings. God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. Solomon is the author, but God is the ultimate source of the wisdom preserved for us.

The Poetic Structure and Metaphorical Language

In terms of its literary form, the Song of Solomon is what scholars call a lyrical idyll. Dr. Ron Allen describes it as a type of love song displaying dramatic characteristics with multiple characters, moving through flashbacks and flash-forwards without adhering to a strict chronological sequence.

The book opens with the bride reminiscing about the early days of their romance.

[SCRIPTURE: Song of Solomon 1:2]

By the end of the book, she is looking back to conversations with her brothers when she was a young girl. Throughout the song, you will also hear from a chorus called the “daughters of Jerusalem,” who serve as poetic narrators, interjecting dialogue and framing the scenes.

We also need to understand the rich, poetic imagery the book employs. While we interpret Scripture literally according to its normal grammatical-historical sense, we must honor the genre. Poetry uses metaphor and evocative imagery. When the groom says her hair is like a flock of goats descending Mount Gilead, he isn’t saying her hair literally looks like livestock; he is using an ancient pastoral image of dark, flowing locks tumbling down over her shoulders. When he says her neck is like the Tower of David adorned with shields, he isn’t saying she has a massive neck; he is describing her noble posture, her dignity, and her grace. We have to read these descriptions through the poetic lens in which they were written.

Why Was This Book So Controversial?

Throughout church history, the Song of Solomon has faced debate regarding its place in the biblical canon. Some early church figures struggled with it because it does not explicitly mention the covenant name of God—much like the book of Esther.

Others were deeply uncomfortable with its graphic, romantic content. In ancient Jewish tradition, some rabbis went so far as to forbid men from reading the book until they were thirty years old, and it was often kept from young women entirely for fear that it would inappropriately arouse their passions. That discomfort led many interpreters to avoid the plain meaning of the text altogether.

Three Ways to Interpret Song of Solomon

Over the centuries, three primary interpretive approaches have emerged regarding this book:

1. The Allegorical Approach

The allegorical view was popular for many centuries. This method essentially ignores the plain, historical meaning of the text to search for a hidden, spiritualized meaning. Under this view, the book isn’t about human marriage or romance at all; rather, it is an extended allegory of God’s love for Israel or Christ’s love for the church. While that sounds pious, the problem is that if you apply that subjective method here, you undermine consistent biblical interpretation elsewhere. You could just as easily allegorize the clear doctrinal truths of Romans.

2. The Extended Typological Approach

The second approach is extended typology. This view acknowledges the literal historical reality of the story, but immediately attempts to find New Testament parallels in every detail, treating the human romance merely as a shadow of Christ and the church.

This approach has heavily shaped church culture. Many of us grew up singing the youth retreat song, “He brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.” We always assumed that song was directly about Jesus. In reality, that line is drawn directly from the Shulamite describing her husband’s public devotion to her.

[SCRIPTURE: Song of Solomon 2:4]

While marriage certainly reflects the gospel in a broad theological sense, this specific verse is a celebration of human romantic love, not an allegorical treatise.

3. The Literal Collection of Love Poems

The third view—and the one that best honors the text—is that the Song of Solomon is a collection of poetic love songs arranged as a dramatic narrative. This perspective, held by ancient rabbis and championed by modern scholars such as Joseph Dillow, Ron Allen, Craig Glickman, and Tom Nelson, recognizes the book as God’s celebration of marital romance.

From this view, the Song of Solomon celebrates the beauty of sexual and emotional intimacy as it was designed to be experienced: securely anchored within the lifelong covenant of marriage between a husband and a wife.

As you walk through these eight chapters, you see a healthy relationship unfold in stages:

• In chapter one, you see initial attraction and dating.
• In chapter two, the relationship moves into deepening courtship.
• In chapter three, you witness a proposal, an engagement, and a wedding.
• In chapter four, the couple celebrates their wedding night.
• In chapter five, they navigate realistic relational conflict and reconciliation.
• In the remaining chapters, their love matures into a deep, enduring bond.

God has given us a magnificent blueprint for godly romance, setting a remarkably high standard for how we pursue and sustain relationships.

Why This Book Matters for Us Today

Why is this book so vital for the church today? Because it reveals God’s heart for romantic love. It shows us that attraction should be built on godly character rather than mere superficial charm. It provides principles for honor and self-control before marriage, and it gloriously affirms physical intimacy within the safety of marriage as a holy gift from God.

Tragically, the church has often remained silent on the topic of sexuality. Because the church has stayed silent, our culture has stepped in to fill the void, hijacking and distorting God’s design.

Doesn’t it make complete sense that the God who created us with intense passions, deep desires, and an innate longing for intimacy would also give us a book showing us how to steward those desires? Without the Song of Solomon, we are left to guess in the dark, constructing our own flawed views of romance. But this book gives us God’s wisdom for singles, for dating couples, for newlyweds, and for those who have been married for decades.

When a husband and wife love each other according to God’s design, they reflect the faithful character of God and bear witness to the beauty of the gospel. From the Garden of Eden, God established marriage as a foundational blessing. Our culture desperately needs to see a redeemed, holy, passionate vision for biblical marriage.

The Song of Solomon is an incredible gem in the treasure chest of Scripture—too often overlooked, misunderstood, or neglected. As we walk through this series together, my prayer is that God will use this remarkable book to heal our perspectives, strengthen our marriages, guide our relationships, and bring glory to His name.