For Sunday, August 30, 2015

Color: green (alternate colors: light green or bronze)

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Themes
• The glory of human love
• Attraction between male and female
• In spring young people’s fancy turns to love

The Song of Solomon is a series (or collection) of love poems, which came to be interpreted symbolically/allegorically as referring to God’s love for believers. The poems are not necessarily about marriage. “[R]eferences to marriage are almost entirely absent from the poems — the notable exception...” (3:6-11) (Stephen L. Harris, Understanding The Bible, p. 263). Many of the words in the Song of Songs are unique or rare elsewhere in the Hebrew scriptures.
The lection is spoken from the woman’s perspective as she sees her lover and quotes him. He is running over the moun­tains in the springtime and she is impressed with his physique and prowess. He comes to her house, gazes through the win­dow, and calls for her to come out with him and enjoy the landscape that has been turned beautiful by the spring.

Verse 9: gazelle. In Hebrew the word sounds like the word for “beauty” (Isaiah 13:19; 23:9).

Verse 11: winter. In Israel winter is not like northern Michigan. It is the rainy season. Figs and vines start to ripen in April and May.

“Note well 2:11 and the role springtime plays in the argument! The flowering of spring is the explanation and the grounds for his proposal that she come away with him. Spring is for the couple and for their enjoyment. Spring is, furthermore, an expression of the budding and efflorescence of nature and a metaphor for the couple and their love that is now mature and ready. The physical world is the pair. In the first two chapters of the Song alone, there are fourteen (!) comparisons of the human characters to flora and fauna. There is scarcely a single metaphor in those two chapters that is not drawn from the animal and vegetable kingdoms. There is hardly a thought, feeling, or movement of the couple that is not likened to a plant or living creature. Numerous similar metaphors abound in each of the chapters of the Song evoking, in total, a dozen animals and nearly twice that number of plants and trees” (Daniel Grossberg, “Nature, Humanity, And Love In The Song Of Songs,” Interpretation, July 2005, p. 233).

“The song clearly deals with sexual love between a man and a woman. There is an almost unanimous consensus among modern scholars that the literal historical meaning of the Song has to do with sexual love.... It is in line with the basic affir­mation of creation, especially of man and woman, as good (Genesis 1). It also harmonizes with the sages’ understanding of sex as portrayed in Proverbs 5:15-19 and Proverbs 30:18-19 (‘the way of a man with a maiden,’ a great mystery). In the rest of the Bible marriage is usually viewed from a social point of view, the union of families and property, and the importance of descendants. In the song sexual love is treated as a value in and for itself” (ABD 6:153).

If one is going to relate this text to the love between Christ and the church, the literal sense must first be acknowledged. The poems were without doubt originally about sexual attraction and love between a man and a woman. Then one can extend the idea and experience of love to Jesus’ cross where he, with the strength of his love and new life, will attract all people to himself.

Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9

Themes
• A magnificently blessed king
• Admiring and flattering the king
• The king is to promote and defend justice and righteousness
• Many senses captured by the king

The lectionary portions of Psalm 45 are about the king, his royal entourage, and the furnishings and ambiance of his dwell­ing. It is written in the exuberant “court-style” of the ancient Near East. Perhaps the psalm celebrates a royal wedding; because the heading names the psalm “a psalm of love.” A procession is pictured in verses 13-15.

Verses 1-2: The psalmist, self-consciously aware of his poetic art (vv. 1, 17), portrays the king as particularly blessed by God. He is physically glorious beyond description and also eloquent.

Verses 6-9: The psalmist seems to continue speaking to the king, stating “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.” Was this psalm addressing the king as god? A possibility is that in the recitation this line could have been physically “aimed” toward the temple or heaven, which is easy enough as one “performs” the psalm at the royal event. Then the next line “Your royal scepter...” returns back (physically) toward the king’s praise who sits on God’s eternal throne. Although kings in Israel were God’s adopted sons (Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7: 14), no kings in Israel — contrary to Babylonia and Egypt — were named “gods.” Praise for the king includes his divine anointing, his marvelous palace with its entertainments, and many daughters of royalty dwelling there along with the golden clothed queen.

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