Song of Solomon 5

“I sleep, but my heart is awake; it is the voice of my beloved! He knocks, saying, 'Open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of the night. I have taken off my robe; how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet; how can I defile them?'” Song of Solomon 5:2-3 (NKJV)

Early into chapter 5, we enter another of the Shulamite girl’s dream sequences.  Unlike her dream in chapter 3, this one is anxious and troublesome.  We must remember that Song of Solomon is poetry, yet it is historical-literal, written about two actual people, whom Solomon observed and declared that they had obtained the love of loves, the “Song of Songs.”  This was something he had never experienced even though he had 1000 wives and concubines.  

“But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites - from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, ‘You shall not intermarry with them, nor they with you. Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods.’ Solomon clung to these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart. For it was so, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.” 1 Kings 11:1-6 (NKJV)

It is easy to understand Solomon’s appreciation for a love so pure and undefiled and why he wanted everyone to know about and imitate it. Because of Solomon’s moral downturn, some suggest this book is simply Solomon’s dirty poetry.  Its description of eros love (passionate, physically demonstrative) makes some people uneasy.  In fact, I have purposely not included its graphic elements because I want to remain sensitive to people’s feelings.  But the graphic nature of certain passages in Song of Solomon brings to mind how our culture has distorted eros love.  James MacDonald identifies these distortions as:  1) Eros Prudish: The idea that eros is bad or dirty. Hey, if you’re married and you don’t have the ability to have fun and smile in the bedroom, that’s Victorian.  Somehow eros, as God designed it, has been stolen from you.  2) Eros Prominent: Some folks ONLY think about eros.  Adult bookstores outnumber Mcdonald's restaurants 4/1. Only ¾ of high school students graduate non-virgins. Our culture has become obsessed with sex.  3) Eros Promiscuous: The idea that the thrill of eros can only come from multiple partners 4) Eros Perversion:  What received capital punishment 100 years ago was locked in prison 50 years ago and hidden because it made people sick 25 years ago is paraded, celebrated and government-funded today.

Song of Solomon is in the Bible for a reason, and it is not simply an example of dirty poetry from a perverse mind.  God does not need to reinforce how depraved Solomon was.  But He does want to show us the example of undefiled Biblical eros.