Heavenly love

The Song of Songs simply explained

Gary Brady

EVANGELICAL PRESS

Faverdale North, Darlington, DL3 0PH, England

e-mail: sales@evangelicalpress.org

Evangelical Press USA

P. O. Box 825, Webster, New York 14580, USA

e-mail: usa.sales@evangelicalpress.org

web: http://www.evangelicalpress.org

© Evangelical Press 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

First published 2006

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available

ISBN-13 978-0-85234-606-8 ISBN 0-85234-606-9

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a member of the Hodder Headline Group. All rights reserved.

This is dedicated to the one I love

i Eleri

f’anwylyd, fy ngholomen, fy mhriodferch, fy chwaer

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. Clarifications: A basic introduction (1:1)

2. Craving: What people rightly want and why (1:2–4)

3. Courtship: Self-perceptions and desires—getting it right (1:5–8)

4. Commitment: Models of care, devotion and fellowship (1:9–2:2)

5. Coming together: The nature of true love (2:3–17)

6. Crisis: A lover lost, a lover sought, a lover found (3:1–5)

7. Ceremony: Two lovers married—a wedding procession (3:6–11)

8. Consummation: Praising, wooing and loving (4:1–5:1)

9. Coldness: The loss of close covenant communion (5:2–8)

10. Captivation: True beauty and where it is found (5:9–6:12)

11. Completeness: The nature of true love in its maturity (6:13–8:4)

12. Continuing: How to continue, commence and complete a loving covenant relationship (8:5–14)

Appendix

Select bibliography

Preface

Jewish rabbis used to warn against reading the Song of Songs before the age of thirty. Similarly, when recommending Bible books for his friend Paula’s daughter to read, Jerome kept the Song until last. If you read it for yourself, especially in a modern version, you will see why. It is the reason why Dorothy L. Sayers’ character Lord Peter Wimsey says that as a youth he ‘got to know the Song of Songs pretty well by heart’.

Should there be a parental advisory sticker on commentaries on the book—especially ones that, like this one, take the view that the book is, at least in part, about marital love? Writing to the Ephesians, Paul certainly warns believers that there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality among them. Perhaps we tend to think of that as a prohibition against thinking about sex at all. In fact, of course, it means that we must keep all our thinking and speaking pure. Rather than hindering us from doing so, this commentary, like the book itself, is intended to help us to do just that, whatever our age or situation.

One former seminary president opined ...