Though the Jewish women were treated more leniently, and enjoyed greater privileges than their sex in other nations, yet it is evident, from a variety of circumstances in Old Testament history, that they were not wholly emancipated from a state of unnatural inferiority. Polygamy was practised amongst the Jews, and its debasing effects were obvious. The harems, the veils, and eunuchs were not uncommon to their women. Weakness of moral character was imputed to them; unfaithfulness and incontinency were dilated upon (Num. v. 12; Prov. xxxi. 10; Eccl. vii. 28). Josephus tells us[16] that women, in consequence of their natural levity, were not admitted as legal witnesses in courts of justice. Maimonides teaches the same; “There are,” says this great luminary, “ten sorts of disqualifications, and every individual in whom one of them is found, is disqualified from giving evidence; and these are women, slaves, children, idiots, the deaf, the blind, the wicked, the despised, relations, and those interested in their testimony; these are the ten.”[17] The Rabbins endeavour to justify this inhuman treatment of women from the law of Moses. “Women,” say they, “are disqualified by the law from giving testimony: for it is said, ‘At the mouth of two witnesses,’ where the word ‘witnesses’ is of the masculine, and not feminine gender.” It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the Jew, among his thanksgivings, should say to the Almighty every morning, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, that thou hast not created me a woman.”
Now, if one sex of the human family has been so degraded by the other; if she whom God created to be a help-mate and counterpart has been reduced by man to the slave of his carnal lusts; if such slavish and inhuman treatment has been justified on the false plea of the natural unfaithfulness and incontinency [[19]]of the sex; if exclusion from society and imprisonment have been deemed necessary for the preservation of her morals, how greatly has woman been alienated from the original design of her creation! how unjustly has her character been aspersed! how inhumanly has she been treated! and how great is the importance of a book which celebrates the virtuous example of a woman, and thus strikes at the root of all her reproaches and her wrongs!
The importance of this view of the book may be further seen from the fact, that, in proportion to the degradation of women, men themselves have become degraded; for, deprived of the meliorating influences which the delicacy and tenderness of women were designed to have over them, and never more needed than in their fallen state, they have abandoned themselves to their worst passions and desires, and thus their whole civil and social condition has been proportionally undignified and unblest. Look, on the other hand, at the state of society where woman is restored to her rightful position, there we shall find refinement of manners, purity of conversation, mutual confidence and affection, domestic happiness, intellectual enjoyment, freedom of thought and action, sympathetic repose, and whatever, in fact, tends to mitigate the unavoidable evils of the present life; all referable, in a greater or less degree, to the unrestricted influence of woman upon the child and upon the man. In religion, her influence is still more potent. If first in the transgression, she is first in the restoration; and were man as ready to follow her in doing good as he has been in doing evil, the world would long ago have been in a holier and happier state than it is at present. Who constitute the principal part of our worshipping assemblies? Women. Who form the chief portion of the members of our churches? Women. Who are the chief agents in the religious education of our children? Women. Who are the main support of our various benevolent and evangelical institutions? Women. Let it not be said, then, that a Book which celebrates the ascendency [[20]]of a virtuous woman in humble life over all the blandishments of wealth and royalty, is unworthy of a place in Holy Writ.
The importance of this book is, moreover, enhanced by the circumstances more immediately connected with the time in which it was written.
The conduct of Bath-sheba with David was calculated to confirm man in his opinion that woman was naturally unfaithful and incontinent, and that it was requisite to exclude her from society, in order to preserve her morals. But the narrative here recorded forms a contrast to the conduct of Bath-sheba. It shows the power of virtue in a woman, even of humble life. As the wife of an officer of rank, accustomed to luxury and wealth, the temptations of Bath-sheba were not so great, and yet she surrendered to them. Whereas the Shulamite, a humble shepherdess, to whom the promise of costly apparel and of elevation from a low and toilsome occupation to the highest rank, must have been an extraordinary allurement, triumphed over them all. If one woman yielded to small incitements, this book shows that another overcame unparalleled temptations, and thus checked the clamour against woman which might have arisen from the conduct of Bath-sheba with David.
SECTION V.—HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE EXEGESIS OF THE BOOK.
No book has furnished a wider field for the speculation and visionary projects of those who substitute their own imagination and enthusiastic feelings for the teaching of Scripture, than the Song of Solomon; the varieties and absurdities of which are a solemn warning against departing from the rules of sound philology and critical interpretation.
An enumeration of all the different interpretations of this Song would be too lengthy, and is not required. It will be sufficient to glance at the leading expositions. We begin with the Jewish. [[21]]
323–246, B.C.[18] It has been supposed that the Septuagint, which may be regarded as the oldest Jewish exegetical tradition, contains some intimation that the translators of the Old Testament into Greek and their Jewish brethren of those days must have interpreted the Song of Solomon in an allegorical manner. The only passage adduced in corroboration of this opinion is, Ch. iv. 8, where the Septuagint renders מֵראֹשׁ אֲמָנָה from the top of Amana, by ἀπὸ ἀρχῆς πίστεως, from the top of faith. That this appeal is nugatory is obvious from the rendering of תִּרְצָה Tirzah by εὐδοκία, delight, vi. 4, and of בַּתנָדִיב noble daughter by θύγατερ Ναδάβ, daughter of Nadab, vii. 1; whence it is evident that the Septuagint frequently mistook proper names for appellatives and adjectives, and vice versâ. It appears inconceivable that a profound scholar like Keil, who is well acquainted with the frequent errors of the Septuagint, should quote this as a special and sufficient proof that “the Alexandrian version took this Song in an allegorical sense,”[19] especially as he knew that some have drawn from it the very opposite conclusion, who have argued that if the authors of the Septuagint had understood this book in any other than its obvious sense, they would have betrayed it in the translation.[20]