Love by the Book

What the Song of Solomon Says about Sexuality, Romance, and the Beauty of Marriage

WALTER C. KAISER JR.

Love by the Book: What the Song of Solomon Says about Sexuality, Romance, and the Beauty of Marriage

© 2016 by Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

LexhamPress.com

First edition by Weaver Book Company.

All rights reserved. You may use brief quotations from this resource in presentations, articles, and books. For all other uses, please write Lexham Press for permission. Email us at permissions@lexhampress.com.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Print ISBN 9781683591801

Digital ISBN 9781683591818

Cover design: Frank Gutbrod

Editorial: Line for Line Publishing Services

For all those beautiful God-honoring marriages

That evidence the love, joy, and deep affection for each other

As God intended for them to enjoy and mirror

for society at large!

Contents

Introducing the Bible’s Best Song:

It’s on Sexuality, Romantic Love, and the Beauty of Marriage

Chapter 1

God’s Gift of Romantic Love (1:1–2:17)

Love’s Desire for an Absent Lover (1:1–4)

Love’s Feeling of Unworthiness (1:5–7)

Love’s Comparisons (1:8–17)

Love’s Virtues (2:1–7)

Love’s Anticipations (2:8–17)

Chapter 2

God’s Gift of Intimate Marital Love (3:1–5:8)

The Longing for Marital Love (3:1–5)

Two Interludes (3:6–11; 4:1–7)

The Prospect of Marital Love (4:8–11)

The Exclusiveness of Marital Love (4:12–15)

The Privacy of Marital Love (4:16–5:1)

The Jealousy of Marital Love (5:2–5:8)

Chapter 3

God’s Gift of Abiding Love (5:9–8:14)

In Praise of the Shepherd-Boyfriend (5:9–6:2)

Our Memory of Love’s Courtship (6:3–8:4)

Our Experience of Love’s Invincibility (8:5–7)

Our Appreciation of Love’s Guardians (8:8–14)

Introducing the Bible’s Best Song

IT’S ON SEXUALITY, ROMANTIC LOVE, AND THE BEAUTY OF MARRIAGE

Some today humorously say, “Read or study the Song of Solomon? I’m too young to do that!”

But that remark is as old as what some of the early church fathers such as Origen and Jerome intoned: a person should not read the Song of Solomon until reaching 30 years of age. At the close of the nineteenth century, Rev. E. P. Eddrupp, prebendary of Salisbury Cathedral, said that the Song of Solomon may not be fitted for public reading in a mixed congregation, or even for private reading by the impure in heart.

Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century the whole biblical concept of marriage and family is under massive attack. The Bible has been forgotten or deliberately dropped from our everyday usage as an authority on what a godly marriage is and what a properly functioning family unit looks like.

Mention in today’s culture the word “marriage” to someone who is between 18 and 29 years of age and you might get a blank stare or a question in return: Why would a person want ...