The King, still determined, if possible, to win her affections, watched for another favourable opportunity, and with flatteries and allurements, surpassing all that he had used before, tried to obtain his purpose. He promised to elevate her to the highest rank, and to raise her above all his concubines and queens, if she would comply with his wishes; but, faithful to her espousals, she refused all his overtures, on the plea that her affections were pledged to another. The King, convinced at last that he could not possibly prevail, was obliged to dismiss her; and the shepherdess, in company with her beloved shepherd, returned to her native place. On their way home, they visited the tree under which they had first met, and there renewed their vows of fidelity to each other. On her arrival in safety at her home, her brothers, according to their promise, rewarded her greatly for her virtuous conduct.
The plot, if such it may be called, gradually develops itself, like most poetic narratives of a similar kind. Various speakers are introduced in the poem, as the Shulamite shepherdess, the shepherd, the King, the court-ladies, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the brothers of the Shulamite, and the companions of the shepherd, all of whom are represented as speaking more or less, but without any such distinctions as we find in Job, as “After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day—Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said—Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said—&c.,” and without separate names, or initial letters of names to indicate the speakers, which renders it difficult to gather the history it contains; and especially as some of the statements appear at first sight to have little or no logical sequence. The Song of Songs differs materially in this respect from all the other books of Scripture; but not, as is well known, from the poems of profane writers.
Notwithstanding the aforementioned difficulty, an attentive [[7]]reader of the original will find nearly as much help from the masterly structure of this Song, as can be obtained from the divisions and initial letters in modern dramas, by which the different speakers are distinguished, and the various statements are connected in a regular narrative.
The recurrence, for instance, of the same formula of adjuration three times (ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4), and the use of another closing sentence (v. 1), divide the Song into five sections. The heroine of the book, when speaking with her beloved or with the king, is easily distinguished by the feminine gender of the verb, or of the adjective or the noun; as, i. 5, “I am swarthy but comely,” where both adjectives, swarthy (שְׁחוֹרָה) and comely (נָאוָה), are feminine in the original, and plainly indicate the speaker. The beloved shepherd, when he speaks, or is spoken to, or is spoken of, is recognised by the pastoral language (i. 3, 4, 7; ii. 12; iii. 4, &c.); the King is distinguished by express allusions to his position (i. 9–11; vi. 4–vii. 10); the court-ladies, when speaking to the Shulamite, are recognised by the phrase, “fairest of women” (i. 8; v. 9; vi. 1), and when spoken to by “daughters of Jerusalem” (i. 5; ii. 7; iii. 5, 10; v. 8; viii. 4); the brothers of the Shulamite are introduced as speaking in ii. 15, compared with i. 6 and viii. 8, 9; the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in iii. 6–11, and the companions of the shepherd, in viii. 5, are sufficiently indicated by the context.
On a careful examination of the statements of the various speakers in these five sections, it will be found that the narrative, though not recorded in the order we have stated, may be easily deduced from it.
In the FIRST section—ch. i. 2, 7—the heroine of the Song, who, as is evident from verse 8 and vii. 1, is a Shulamite shepherdess, ardently wishes for the presence and love-tokens of her beloved, who, as she herself most distinctly tells us (ver. 7, and ii. 16; vi. 3), is a shepherd; she wishes him to take her away from the royal apartments into which the King had brought her, for she loves him above all things (verses 2, 3, 4); [[8]]these apartments (or royal tent), as we learn from iii. 6–11, were out of Jerusalem, and in the neighbourhood of the Shulamite’s home, where the King temporarily resided, and where he met with the damsel (vi. 11, 12). In reply to the disdainful looks of the daughters of Jerusalem, in whose presence she had expressed her desire for the shepherd, and who had contrasted their fair and delicate countenances with her own, she insists that her swarthy complexion need not render her contemptible, for it was not natural, but had arisen from the duties which her brothers had unjustly required of her (v. 6); she then resumes the address to her beloved, asking him, as if he were present, to tell her where he tends his flock (7). The daughters of Jerusalem, who, as we see from vi. 9, are the court-ladies, comprising the maidens, concubines, and queens, ironically answer this question (8). The watchful King, having heard that she wished for her beloved, immediately comes forward, and, with flatteries and promises, tries to win her affections (9, 10, 11); but without effect; for as soon as the King retires she shows her unabated attachment to her shepherd (12; ii. 6), and concludes by adjuring the court-ladies not to persuade her to transfer her affections to another (7).
The SECOND section—ch. ii. 8; iii. 5—though apparently disconnected from the first, is found, upon investigation, to be a proper and natural sequence. The Shulamite, in rebutting the contempt of the court-ladies, had reflected with some severity upon her brothers for sending her to keep the vineyards; but this had been done merely to account for the darkness of her complexion; and having been interrupted in her warm address to her beloved, which she hastened to resume, she was obliged to be satisfied with this passing allusion to that event. It was natural, therefore, to expect that, at the first opportunity, she would state more circumstantially how her brothers came to be severe with her, and why they had made her a keeper of the vineyards, which she proceeds to do in this section. She tells the court-ladies that her brothers were displeased with her [[9]]because they had overheard the shepherd inviting her to accompany him into the fields to enjoy together the charms of nature (8–14), on account of which, in their anxiety for her reputation, they changed her employment, told her to be a “keeper of the vineyards,” in order to separate her from her beloved (15). She, moreover, relates that they consoled themselves with the assurance that, though separated bodily, indissoluble ties subsisted between them, over which her brothers had no control (16); that she invited him to come again in the evening, when unobserved (17); and that, seeing he did not come, she went in search of him, &c. (ch. iii. 1–4). Having thus evinced her deep attachment for the shepherd, she again concludes by adjuring the court-ladies not to persuade her to transfer her affections to another (5).
This section, therefore, follows the preceding one, to set forth the cause of the brother’s severity in having made her a “keeper of the vineyards,” and thus gives a further insight into her previous history.
The THIRD section (ch. iii. 6, v. i.) relates the second unsuccessful effort of Solomon to gain the Shulamite’s affections. The King, determined to gain his purpose, takes the damsel, with great pomp, into the capital (ch. iii. 6–11), in the hope of dazzling her with his great splendour; but he is again disappointed. In the midst of the imposing magnificence, the damsel tells her beloved shepherd, who has followed her thither, and obtained an interview with her, and expressed his delight at seeing her again (ch. iv. 1–5), that she is anxious to quit the palace for her rural home (6). Her beloved, on hearing this, offers his assistance to effect an escape (7, 8), and praises her constancy and charms (9–16); whereupon they both manifest their mutual attachment in so affecting a manner that even some of the court-ladies are moved (ch. iv. 16, v. 1), with whose expression of sympathy the section concludes.
The bearing which this section has upon the whole plan is, in the first place, to develop the progress of the history itself, [[10]]inasmuch as it records the conveyance of the Shulamite from her rural home into the royal capital; and, in the second place, to relate her faithfulness in resisting another temptation, in which the grandeur of the procession which elicited so much admiration from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the splendour of the court, which dazzled the eyes and fed the vanity of so many of its inmates, had far less charms for her than the presence of her shepherd in a humble home.