THROUGH THE BIBLE— SONG OF SOLOMON #1

 Solomon on Sex #1

God's instruction book on Sex in Marriage

Here I present to you (over a period of time) the wonderful old book by Joseph Dillow "Solomon and Sex." It is in my view the true understanding of the Song of Songs by King Solomon. Further, and more important, in my view, it is GOD'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL on the subject of sex in marriage. Mr. Dillow presents the Song of Songs in a very up front and plain manner. God is the creator of sex, so it is only fitting He should give us instructions on sex in marriage. The truth of the matter on Sexuality in marriage. Thank you Mr.Dillow - Keith Hunt                               SOLOMON ON SEX                                 CHAPTER ONE      Amid the current deluge of marriage manuals and sensational guides to liberated lovemaking, one small, beautiful book deserves all the attention the others are clamoring for, but it lies misunderstood and largely neglected. Few people realize the One who created us male and female also provided us with specific instructions as to how we best respond as men and women. Who wrote the book?      The author is Solomon, King of Israel. The Song was apparently written during the early part of his reign when he was still a young man. What are we reading?      Solomon's writing takes the form of a lyric idyll, a kind of love song. In a lyric idyll, speeches and events don't necessarily follow in chronological order. It's like a movie with several flashbacks; the story remains temporarily suspended while the audience views a scene from the past. This explains the lack of chronological sequence in the song.      Another feature of lyric idylls is the chorus. This is an imaginary group that interrupts certain scenes to make brief speeches or to give warnings. The writer uses the chorus as a literary device to make transitions from one scene to another or to emphasize a point.      The book is a series of fifteen reflections of a married woman, Solomon's queen, as she looks back at the events leading to the marriage, the wedding night, and their early years together. These "reflections" are expressed in fifteen short love songs. The story behind the Song      King Solomon lives in the tenth century B.C. He is Israel's richest king, and owns vineyards all over the nation - one of them close to Baalhamon in the northernmost part of Galilee, near the foothills of the Lebanon mountains. While visiting this vineyard, Solomon meets a country girl, Shulamith. She captures his heart. For some time he pursues her and makes periodic visits to see her at her country home.      Finally he asks her to marry him. Shulamith gives serious consideration to whether she really loves him and can be happy in the palace of a king, and finally accepts.      Solomon sends a wedding procession to escort his new bride-to-be to the palace in Jerusalem. The book opens as she is getting ready for the wedding banquet and the wedding night. The details of their first night together are erotically but tastefully described, and the first half of the book closes.      The second half of the book deals with the joys and problems of their married life. She refuses his sexual advances one night, and the king departs. She, realizing her foolishness, gets up and tries to find him, eventually does, and they have a joyous time embracing again.      While she lives at the palace, the new queen often longs for the mountains of Lebanon where she grew up. She finally asks Solomon to take her there on a vacation. He agrees, and the book closes with their return to her country home and their enjoyment of sexual love there. Symbolism of the Song      God could have used medical terms or slang in speaking of sex. But medical terms cause a sense of awkwardness, and we react negatively to slang. So God avoided both by expressing these delicate things in the language of poetry: symbols. Symbolism says more than medical or slang ever could, but without creating awkwardness or evoking negative reactions.      When it comes to explaining the meaning of the symbols, we will obviously have to use some medical synonyms. This problem faces any tasteful interpreter of the Song.      We will follow the oldest attested method of interpretation - the normal approach. We will take the Song at face value and see how it applies to us today.      Some writers seem hesitant to believe sex was intended by God for any purpose other than procreation. Therefore, they refuse to accept a normal interpretation of the book. God, they say, would never allow a book about sex (even in marriage) in the canon of Scripture. So the normal meaning of the Song was covered up ("It's a metaphor"), slid over ("Well, it does not really mean that") and allegorized ("It's a picture of God and his people").      The book is full of metaphors and other symbols, but was never intended to be an allegory. Instead, it is simply a picture of idealized married love as God intended it.      As an example of how absurd our interpretations can become when we reject the normal meaning of the symbols, some Jewish rabbis argued the book was an allegory of Jehovah's love for Israel. In this context the verse, "My beloved is to me a pouch of myrrh which lies all night between my breasts" (1:13) was interpreted to refer to the Shekinah Glory between the two cherubim that stood over the Ark in the Tabernacle. Some Christian scholars, following the same approach, concluded the Song spoke, instead, of Christ's love for His church. They held that the "pouch of myrrh ... between my breasts" referred to Christ appearing between the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament!      We want to remove these metaphorical mists and take a clear look at God's guidelines for sex, love and marriage. As we do, we want to also point to the source of answers for all other areas of problems in our lives: the Word of God. God has spoken authoritatively on sex through Solomon, and those who try His guidelines will find them workable and true. Was Solomon qualified?      Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines; how could he have anything to say about ideal monogamistic love? If Solomon really believed monogamy was the pattern God wanted men to follow, as he says in the Song, and if he really was so ecstatic about his relationship with Shulamith, his bride, why then did he continue in his lustful polygamy which led to his downfall? Some possible answers. (1) If Solomon wrote this book while practicing polygamy, It would be a powerful argument against the fruitlessness and emptiness of having many wives. It would be a poem emphasizing the beauty of ideal love written by one who had experienced the opposite. He could write from experience that polygamy is not fulfilling as the way to find a maximum marriage. (2) The fact that Solomon may have been a hypocrite doesn't necessarily disqualify him from writing about how he should behave. Solomon also wrote Ecclesiastes and Proverbs. Ecclesiastes, written with the warning that life apart from a relationship with God is like trying to catch the wind, demonstrates Solomon knew from experience the truth about God. In Proverbs, Solomon also stresses that ideal marriage consists of one man with one woman. And he emphasizes again the abuses of riches. In actuality Solomon violated just about every precept he wrote about, is he therefore unqualified to write the book of Proverbs? If you teach your children about the wrongness of lying and anger, then catch yourself in a lie or a fit of anger, does that mean your teaching was not sound? In the same way, the fact that a polygamist wrote the Song of Solomon doesn't affect the value of the book as a guide to sexual love in monogamistic marriage. (3) Because the Song describes Solomon when he was a young man, in the early years of his reign, it is possible the wives he had contracted at this time were taken in political marriages, and that he had not yet degenerated into lustful polygamy. Other views      Insofar as the aim of this book is popular rather than technical, digressions into discussions of other viewpoints will not be undertaken. This in no way is intended as a slight to these serious alternatives but is simply a concession to a more practical aim.        Hence the framework outlined above will be assumed throughout the book and only defended at what seem to be particularly important points. FOOTNOTES 1 - Richard G. Moulton, "Lyric Idyl: Solomon's Song," The Literary Study of the Bible (London Isbiter & Co., Limited, 1903), pp. 207-224. 2 - H.H. Rowley, "The Interpretation of the Song of Songs," The Servant of the Lord and Other Essays (London: Lutterworth, 1952). 3 - For a good discussion of other views of the Song consult the article by Rowley listed in the footnotes to this chapter....                             .................. To be continued with "THE WEDDING DAY" Entered on my Website June 2007 Keith Hunt