A Personal Ideal

How fair you are, how beautiful!  O Love, with all its raptures!  Song of Songs 7:7  JPS

Its – Does the second part of this verse sound a bit strange to you?  The man begins with something we can easily understand.  He thinks his lover is incredibly beautiful.  But instead of “O love, with all your raptures” we are suddenly transported to the realm of ideals.  “O Love,” notice the capital letter, isn’t about his lover.  It’s about the idea of Love.  How did this happen?

Notice that the LXX does not make this shift.  The verse is translated: “How beautiful art thou, and how sweet art thou, my love!”  Exactly what we expected.  But the JPS translation follows Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin, a twelfth century Sephardic commentator.  In addition, it seems to follow the thought of Ibn Ezra (Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra), from the same historical period, by suggesting that ba-ta’anugim (“all ___ raptures”).  Ibn Ezra asserted that human erotic desire was the greatest of all earthly delights.  “This reads the prefixed preposition ba- as[1] indicating something superlative with a class.”  The Hebrew noun is the plural derivative of the verbal root ʿānōg, meaning “to be soft, delicate.”  “Raptures” seems to be a stretch.  But not for medieval Jewish commentators.  Their imaginative exegesis produced many creative readings, especially in a book like Song of Songs.

Is that a problem?  Well, it depends (the usual Jewish answer).  The commentators were anxious to move the interpretation out of the realm of raw sexuality.  Erotic desire was just too scandalous of a sacred text.  So, they employed allegory.  According to them, this poem really isn’t about sex.  It’s about the rapturous feelings of devotion between God and Israel (or, if you’re from the Christian side of the house, between the Church and the Lord Jesus Christ).  Let the stretching begin!  Suddenly words that have typical meanings in physical relationships become clues to heightened spiritual awareness.  That line about resting his head between her breasts isn’t really about breasts at all.  It’s about finding security between Abraham and Moses.  It won’t take imagination to reinterpret the rest of the text.  ba-ta’anugim  isn’t about the erotic desire of a lover.  It’s about the superiority of “Love” as a spiritual ideal.

What do we learn from this imaginative exegesis?  Perhaps we learn something more than just how wild men’s efforts are to steer clear of irreligious language.  We learn that allegory without the author’s explanation can be used any way the reader wishes.  Since we don’t have the explanation of the author of Song of Songs, virtually any interpretation employing allegory is possible.  Is it about Moses or Jesus?  The Church or Israel?  The soul or the devil?  Take your pick!  What we need to realize is that Song of Songs isn’t the only biblical text treated like this.  Often Yeshua’s parables are interpreted as allegories despite the fact that he never says they are.  Theologians and exegetes love allegory because it allows them to read the text as they wish to read it.  Genesis giants are evil spirits, the end of the world is a political war, the world is full of angels and demons.  You can add a few more, I’m sure.  Just be careful.

Topical Index:  allegory, ba-ta’anugim, raptures, desire, Song of Songs 7:7

[1] Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Song of Songs (JPS, 2015), p. 188.

NOTE: The links in yesterday’s edition were broken.  Here are the correct ones (they have been updated on the web site edition)

John MacArthur (https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/what-relationship-between-divine-sovereignty-and-human-responsibility) or this one from a Messianic (supposedly?) perspective: https://www.shema.com/gods-attributes-gods-sovereignty-3035/