Song of Songs 1

Song of Songs 1 (abbreviated as Song 1) is the first chapter of a book called "Song of Songs" or "Song of Solomon" in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book is one of the Five Megillot, a collection of short books, together with Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, within the Ketuvim, the third and the last part of the Hebrew Bible. Jewish tradition views Solomon as the author of this book (although this is now largely disputed), and this attribution influences the acceptance of this book as a canonical text. This chapter contains the superscription, songs of the main female characters and the opening song of the male character.
Text.
The original text is written in Hebrew language. This chapter is divided into 17 verses (16 verses in the Latin Vulgate translation).
Textual witnesses.
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text, which includes the Aleppo Codex (10th century), and Codex Leningradensis (1008). Some fragments containing parts of this chapter were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, assigned as 6Q6 (6QCant); 50 CE; extant verses 1–7).
There is also a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the Septuagint version include Codex Vaticanus (B; formula_1B; 4th century), Codex Sinaiticus (S; BHK: formula_1S; 4th century), and Codex Alexandrinus (A; formula_1A; 5th century).
Structure.
The Modern English Version (MEV) divides this chapter as follows:
The New Catholic Bible and Jerusalem Bible treat verses 2-4 as a "prologue". Richard Hess, on the other hand, treats verses 1:1-2:7 as a "prologue".
Superscription (1:1).
A superscription in a biblical book functions like the title page of a modern book, containing information about the genre, author, and sometimes also the subject matter and the date of the book (in prophecy books for examples, ; ; in wisdom books: ; ).
Verse 1.
This verse is a detached description of the book's content, containing two phrases: "the song of songs" and "which is Solomon's".
Female: Longing for her lover (1:2–7).
This section is the first part of the Prologue, as described by Hess, containing the description of the lovers' first coming together and intimacy (1:2–2:7). The speaker is a woman as definitely established in verse 5 from the adjectival form "shehora" ("black").
Verses 2–4 contains a 'romantic soliloquy' of a woman about her lover, with two distinctive word-patterns: "your_love (or 'lovemaking') more_than_wine" (verses 2, 4; Hebrew: , " mî-") and "they love you" (verses 3, 4; Hebrew: , "").
The first appearance of the first word-pattern is a part of a chiastic structure (verses 2b–3a):
The second chiastic structure of the same word-pattern could be found in verse 4(c–d). The word for the noun "love" ("") is plural, indicating more that one romantic act, so here "lovemaking" is a better rendering than a simple word "love".
One Hebrew word ("ahebuka") becomes the second word-pattern "[they] love you" which is used 'twice as the last word of a tricolon' in verses 3 and 4. The root verb "love" ("") is used seven times in the whole book (verses 1:3, 4, 7; 3:1, 2, 3, 4) and always translated in Greek using the same verb 'agapaō' in Septuagint (LXX) (also only seven times in these seven verses of the book).
Verse 3.
[The Shulamite]
Verse 4.
[The Shulamite]
[The Daughters of Jerusalem]
[The Shulamite]
[The Daughters of Jerusalem]
[The Shulamite]
Verse 5.
The phrase "daughters of Jerusalem" ("friends of the woman" in MEV heading; "girls of Jerusalem" in Living Bible) is introduced as one of the three identifiable speaking voices and principal characters in this chapter, other than the woman, who speaks until verse 7, and the man, whom the woman talks about in 1:2-4 and 7 (he starts to speak in 1:9-11).
Male: Response with invitation and praise (1:8–11).
Hess notes the distinct structure of the verses containing the male's response in term of the syllable count for the lines in each one:
It is clear that verse 8 is structurally out of sequence among these verses and different in the content as well: verse 8 provides the answer to the female's prior question, whereas verses 9–11 focus on her beauty.
Verse 8.
[He]
All three finite verbs in this verse ("know", "follow" and "pasture") have the woman as the subject, and the second-person feminine singular form is used for "you" or "your". The structure of this verse duplicates the woman's question and plea of verse 7. MEV applies this verse to the "Friends of the woman".
Verse 9.
[The Man]
The man calls his lover, "my love" (or "my [female] friend"; Hebrew: , ') a specific term of endearment for women that is used 9 times in the book (Song 1:9, 15; , ; ,; ; ). The masculine form of the same root word to call the man ("my [male] friend"; Hebrew: , ') is used in a parallel construction with "my beloved" (Hebrew: , "") in .
Female: Her lover as fragrance (1:12–14).
In these three verses, the woman describes her lover in the first line and their relationship in the second line. The second word in each of the verses—the king, the myrrh, the henna—are the only words preceded by the definite article ("ha") in this section, indicating their identification with one another.
Male: Praise of beauty (1:15).
Verse 15.
In this verse and the following, the lovers exchange a mutual admiration in a parallel fashion:
The response of the man comprises seven words, two of which are repeated (Hebrew: " ", "behold_you_[are] fair"). The exclamation "you are beautiful" is used most frequently by the man to describe his lover (1:8,15; , ; ,; , [Masoretic: 7:2,7]).
Female: Love in paradise (1:16–2:1).
Verses 16–17 focus on the subject of trees, with a closure in on the subject of flowers, to provide a 'picture of the bed as a spreading growth', using a theme of nature's flora.