sequence. These anthologies thus provide insights into the Jewish religious and cultural mentality over many centuries (from the second to fifth centuries C.E., especially). According to the prologues added to the anthology called Songs Rabbah, it was King Solomon himself who (by divine inspiration) composed the Song in order to teach Torah in public—with the aim of clarifying dense or elliptical formulations in the Torah narrative through creative and expansive figures. Solomon’s purpose was thus