The following analysis is gathered from Harmer’s singularly confused work. Chapter I. describes Solomon and his attendants meeting the Egyptian bride and her companions; ii. 1–iii. 5, describes the complaining language of the Jewish queen; iii. 6–v. 1, resumes the account of Solomon’s journey with the Egyptian bride up to Jerusalem, and describes the consummation of the marriage; v. 2–vi. 3, relates Solomon’s conversation with his Jewish wife; vi. 4–9, Solomon’s conversation with the Egyptian wife in the garden; vi. 10–viii. 7, begins with Solomon’s astonishment at his being surprised by his Jewish wife whilst in the garden with the Egyptian wife, and the ensuing conversation between them; viii. 8, describes the imaginative hope of the Jewish wife that Solomon’s marriage with the Egyptian would not be consummated, and that she would, therefore, not be treated as a wife; viii. 9, gives Solomon’s reply, that the Egyptian princess should be treated with the highest honours; viii. 10–12, contains a smart reply of the Egyptian princess to the Jewish queen, in which she at the same time also notices the addition her marriage had made to the King’s possessions; viii. 13, states Solomon’s appeal to the Jewish queen in the presence of all to give her final thoughts respecting her future conduct; viii. 14, gives her resolution to keep her distance; but at the same time there appears no thought of renouncing her relation to Solomon on her part, as “there was not on his.” “Such actually,” concludes Harmer, “is the state of things with respect to the Messiah, and the two churches of Jews and Gentiles. The Jewish Church persists in not receiving the Gentiles as fellow-heirs, but they renounce not their relation to the Messiah, nor has he utterly excluded them from hope. The state of distance has long continued, but as they still remain a distinct body of people, waiting for great events that are to happen, so the New Testament leads us to expect their reconciliation.”
1770. Different to these strange outlines of Harmer were the effects which Lowth’s remarks upon this Song produced in [[87]]Germany. Michaelis, the celebrated professor at the Göttingen University, in his edition of the Praelectiones, took a more advanced and decided step in the interpretation of this book. He not only rejected the allegorical interpretation, as unsupported by internal evidence, but denied the theory, defended by Lowth, &c., that this poem celebrates the nuptials of Solomon, because there is no direct mention made in any part of this long poem of the marriage ceremony, nor of any circumstance attending it; no time appearing appropriated to the nuptial banquet itself, the bride and the bridegroom being separated from and in quest of each other, wishing and enjoying solitude, always showing themselves in the street or field when conversing together, or with the virgins, and never found with the guests or at the banquet; because it cannot be possibly imagined that a bridegroom would be so necessitated to labour as not to be able to devote the few days of his nuptial week to the celebration of his marriage; that he would be compelled immediately to quit his spouse and his friends for whole days in order to attend his cattle in the pastures; and especially because we could not imagine that the bridegroom would at this time of the festival leave his bride, to whom he professes to be so deeply attached, alone and unhappy, and not return at night. The learned professor, therefore, concludes that this Song describes the chaste passion of conjugal and domestic love; the attachment of two delicate persons who have been long united in the sacred bond; and then asks, Can we suppose such happiness unworthy of being recommended as a pattern to mankind, and of being celebrated as a subject of gratitude to the great Author of happiness?[102]
1771. The honour, however, of first elucidating the true design of this book is due to J. T. Jacobi; notwithstanding the imperfections of his attempt. He showed that the importance of this Song is not to describe the chaste passion of conjugal love, but to celebrate fidelity. The pattern of this [[88]]conjugal fidelity is the Shulamite, the heroine of the book. This humble woman was married to a shepherd. Solomon, being struck with her beauty, tempted her with the luxuries and splendour of his court to forsake her husband and enter the royal harem; but the Shulamite spurned all the allurements, and remained faithful to her humble husband.[103] However strange the manner in which Jacobi divides this book, and the interpretation of separate passages, it must be acknowledged that he was the first in Germany who showed that Solomon was not the object of the Shulamite’s affections, and that the beloved was a humble shepherd from whom the King endeavoured to separate her. It will be remembered that Ibn Ezra, Immanuel, and the Anonymous Commentary,[104] have already taken the lovers to be a shepherd and shepherdess, and regarded Solomon as a separate person, whom the rustic maiden adduces in illustration of her sincere attachment to her shepherd, affirming that if this great King were to bring her into his court, and offer her all its grandeur and luxuries, she would still rejoice in her humble lover.
1772. It seems unaccountable that though the increased attention paid in this country to the sound exegesis of the Scriptures compelled expositors to propound the literal meaning of this book, that Durell[105] could still overlook the two distinct persons referred to in this poem, viz. the King and the Shepherd, and maintain that the Song of Songs is an epithalamium on Solomon’s marriage with Pharaoh’s daughter.
1776. It was not to be expected that the opposition of sound critics, and much less the newly propounded view of Jacobi, would at once subvert the old allegorical theories, or check fertile imaginations from inventing new speculations. The Song of Songs was too darling an object of those whose minds were addicted to allegories and mysticisms to be so [[89]]easily surrendered to the simple meaning of the text. So far from being surprised, we rather expect that every one who rejects the obvious sense of the Song will find in it some new view which his predecessors had overlooked. And Herr von Puffendorf’s new theory, therefore, only realises our expectations. He explained this Song hieroglyphically, and by a process of reasoning as sound as that of the other allegorisers, found his interpretation corroborated by analogy. The sacred picture language constituted the wisdom of Solomon’s days, and was therefore used among all nations to express everything divine. As Solomon was more versed in the Egyptian mysteries than any of his contemporaries, he would necessarily write the divine mysteries contained in this book in hieroglyphics, in accordance with the custom of those days. According to the deciphering of these hieroglyphics by Puffendorf, “this much disputed Song treats almost exclusively of the sepulchre of the Saviour, and his death, and the communion of believers, especially of Old Testament saints; but it also describes their longing for his Advent, whereby, however, the condition of the New Testament community, and even the resurrection from the dead, are represented in prophetical types.”[106] On the clause,
“The virgins love thee.” Puffendorf remarks, “These are the pure and chaste souls which are locked up in the dark sepulchre, and wait for the light;” and in a note says, “the root עָלַﬦ, whence עֲלָמוֹת, virgins, is derived, signifies to be concealed, as those souls were. The Egyptian Neitha, or Minerva, was the tutelar deity of pious souls, and was covered with a veil, which none were allowed to uncover. The virgins, concealed in the same manner, have to expect that through marriage they will emerge into light. Thus the souls are here represented, which in the dominion of darkness wait for salvation and light.”
The curious reader must consult the Commentary itself to see how this extraordinary mode of exposition is carried through the book. [[90]]
1778. About two years after the publication of the deciphered hieroglyphics of this Song, the allegorical interpretation sustained some most severe blows from the eminently pious and celebrated poet Herder. He denounced the allegorisers as violating common sense, and the established laws of language, and maintained that this Song celebrated true and chaste love in its various stages.
Upon the question, whether there may not be another sense concealed under the obvious and literal meaning, Herder remarks—“When I read the book itself I do not find the slightest intimation, or even the faintest trace that such a sense was the design of the author. Were I to admit it, I should also expect to find it in the Song of Ibrahim, in the odes of Hafiz, and in all the oriental erotic poems which in form entirely resemble this Song. In the life of Solomon I discover still less reason for this concealed sense, be it historical, mystical, metaphysical, or political. For Solomon’s wisdom did not consist in mysticism, much less in metaphysics, or scholastic church history. His wisdom was displayed in his common sense, as seen in his view of the things of this life, in his acute penetration and extensive knowledge of nature. Subsequent Arabian tradition has indeed attributed to him also the art of sorcery, and of driving out evil spirits, but never did even this tradition ascribe to him the downcast look of a mystic, or represent him as indulging in airy speculations, or as writing a compendium of Christian Church History.”[107]
Herder admits that this book describes the love of a shepherd and shepherdess, as well as that of a king; but finding great difficulty to account for this, he divides the book into separate songs, or amorets, while at the same time he acknowledges that there is a marked unity throughout, and that love is [[91]]described from its first germs to its full maturity, its ripened fruit, and its first regermination.