《Lange’s Commentary on the HolyScriptures–Song of Solomon》(Johann P. Lange)
Commentator
Johann Peter Lange (April 10, 1802, Sonneborn (now a part of Wuppertal) - July 9, 1884, age 82), was a German Calvinist theologian of peasant origin.
He was born at Sonneborn near Elberfeld, and studied theology at Bonn (from 1822) under K. I. Nitzsch and G. C. F. Lüheld several pastorates, and eventually (1854) settled at Bonn as professor of theology in succession to Isaac August Dorner, becoming also in 1860 counsellor to the consistory.
Lange has been called the poetical theologian par excellence: "It has been said of him that his thoughts succeed each other in such rapid and agitated waves that all calm reflection and all rational distinction become, in a manner, drowned" (F. Lichtenberger).
As a dogmatic writer he belonged to the school of Schleiermacher. His Christliche Dogmatik (5 vols, 1849-1852; new edition, 1870) "contains many fruitful and suggestive thoughts, which, however, are hidden under such a mass of bold figures and strange fancies and suffer so much from want of clearness of presentation, that they did not produce any lasting effect" (Otto Pfleiderer).
Introduction
THE
SONG OF SOLOMON
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BY
DR. OTTO ZÖCKLER,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GREIFSWALD
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TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, WITH ADDITIONS
BY
W. HENRY GREEN, D.D,
PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL AND O.T. LITERATURE IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AT PRINCETON, N. J.
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THE
SONG OF SOLOMON
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INTRODUCTION
§ 1. NAME AND ARTISTIC FORM OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON
The title שִׁירהַשִּׁירִים, “ Song of Solomon,” or, as it is more fully expressed in Song of Solomon 1:1, שִׁירהַשִׁירִיםאֲשֶׁרלִשְׁלֹמחֹ. “The Song of Solomon, which is Solomon’s,” describes this book neither as a “series (chain) or collection of many songs” (as Kleuker, Augusti, Velthusen, Paulus suppose), nor as one prominent among the many songs of Solomon (according to Ibn Ezra’s and D. Kimchi’s translation: “A song of the songs of Solomon”). “Song of songs” (Sept, ᾆσμαᾀσμάτων; Vulg, canticum canticorum) is without doubt rather designed to characterize this poem as the most excellent of its kind, as the finest, the most precious of songs. Of the many Song of Solomon, which, according to 1 Kings 5:12, Solomon composed, the author of this title,—whom we must at all events distinguish from the poet himself, as is shown particularly by its אֲשֶׁר instead of the poetical abbreviation שֶׁ, which is always used in the song itself[FN1]—would exalt the one before us as especially commendable and elegant. This sense, suggested by analogies like “heaven of heavens” ( 1 Kings 8:27), “servant of servants” Genesis 9:25, “vanity of vanities” ( Ecclesiastes 1:2), “ornament of ornaments” ( Ezekiel 16:7),[FN2] which Luther has briefly and appositely expressed by “das Hohelied,” is undoubtedly involved in the expression, whether אֲשֶׁרלִשְׁלֹמהֹ, “which is Solomon’s,” be referred (as is usually done) to the principal subject in the singular שִׁיר, “ Song of Solomon,” or to the immediately preceding plural הַשִּׁירִים (“Song of the songs of Solomon=the noblest among the songs of Solomon;” Song of Solomon,e.g., Hitzig, Ewald, Dichter des A. Bds., 2d edit, I, 236; Bleek, Einleit. in’s A. T., 2d edit, p636).[FN3]
The unity of its contents might accordingly be inferred from this most ancient denomination of the book, traditionally preserved in the Bible. The Song of Solomon is one poem, a poetical unit artistically arranged and consistently wrought out—not a collection of many songs put together like a string of pearls (Herder), a “delightful medley” (Goethe), an anthology of erotic poems without mutual connection (Magnus), a conglomerate of “fragments thrown together in wild confusion” (Lossner), etc. All these hypotheses which issue in the chopping up of this noble work of art (with which is to be classed in the most recent times the view taken by the Reformed Jews Rebenstein and Sanders, which pares away portions of Song of Solomon 3, 8 as spurious, and carves the whole into four songs) are utterly untenable. This appears both negatively from the meaningless and formless character of the fragments, great or small, which they create, and positively from the impression of unity and inner connection which an unprejudiced and thorough study of the whole produces. That in several passages the same sentence recurs in identical words as a refrain (see particularly Song of Solomon 2:7; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 8:4); that a chorus of “daughters of Jerusalem” is addressed no less than six times, and a seventh time is mentioned in the third person ( Song of Solomon 3:10; comp. Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 2:7; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 5:8; Song of Solomon 5:16; Song of Solomon 8:4); that the relation of a lover to his beloved runs through the whole as the prominent theme, and prevailingly in the form of a dialogue or responsive song (see especially Song of Solomon 1; Song of Solomon 2:1-7; Song of Solomon 4; Song of Solomon 7, 8); and finally that references not only to the times of Song of Solomon, but to his person as the principal subject of all the descriptions and amatory outpourings of the heart stand out every where over and over again ( Song of Solomon 1:4-5; Song of Solomon 3:7-11; Song of Solomon 7:6; Song of Solomon 8:11-12); these are incontrovertible criteria of the strict unity of the whole which is not to be doubted even where particular portions seem not to cohere so well together, or where it remains uncertain to which of the actors a sentence or series of sentences is to be assigned. The whole is really a שִׁיר, a song or poem, i.e., not a carmen (a lyric poem, hymn or ode), to be sung with instrumental accompaniment—in which case it would have been called מִזְמוֹר rather than שִׁיר—but a poem of a more comprehensive kind and of lyrico-dramatic character, a cycle of erotic Song of Solomon, possessing unity of conception, and combined in the unity of one dramatic action. Whether now it be likened to the bucolic compositions of the later Greeks, and so be esteemed a Hebrew idyl or carmen amœbæum (so Hug, Herbst and older writers before them); or a proper dramatic character be claimed for it, and on this presumption it be maintained that it was actually performed in public, being both acted and sung after the manner of an opera (Böttcher, Renan), or at least was designed for such performance (Ewald); it must at all events be maintained as scientifically established and confirmed by all the details of its poetic execution, that its plan and composition are dramatic, and consequently that the whole belongs to the dramatic branch of the Old Testament Chokmah- (חָכְמָה) literature, and is the representative of the lyrico-dramatic (melo-dramatic) poetry of the O. T, as the Book of Job is the principal specimen of the epico-dramatic (didactic dialogue). Comp. the Introduction to the Solomonic Wisdom of Solomon -literature in general (in commentary on Proverbs), § 5,10.
Remark1.—Against the attempt of Ibn, Ezra, Kimchi and other Rabbins to explain שִׁירהַשִּׁירִים as meaning “a song of the songs” may be urged not only the analogy of the expressions above adduced as “heaven of heavens,” etc., but also the fact that this partitive sense would have to be expressed by שִׁירמֵהַשִּׁירִים. The expression “a song of the songs of Solomon” would also have been strangely pleonastic, and have conflicted unduly with the analogy of the titles to the Psalm, which never contain more than the simple שִׁיר (or מִזְמוֹר, or שִׁירמִזְמוֹר).—On the other hand, it makes against the interpretation: “a Song of Solomon,” i.e., “a collection of several Song of Solomon, a chain of songs” (Kleuker, Sammlung der Gedichte Salomo’s, sonst das Hohelied genannt, 1780, p6 f.; Augusti, Einleitung, p213), that then שִׁיר would have an entirely different sense the first time from that it has the second, as though it were synonymous with the Chald. שֵׁיר, “chain,” and with the corresponding Arabic word, and signified “series” (so Velthusen and Paulus, in Eichhorn’s Repertorium XVII, p109 f.).[FN4] This would the more conflict with Hebrew usage because this language has a special fondness for the combination of a noun in the singular with a dependent plural of like signification to denote the superlative. Comp. Ewald, Lehrb., § 313, c. [Green’s Heb. Gram., § 254, 2, a].—On Solomon’s authorship indicated by אֲשֶׁרלִשְׁלמֹהֹ comp. § 3below.
Remark2.—The unity of the Song of Solomon has been repeatedly contested in recent times. Herder (“Lieder der Liebe, die ältesten und schönsten aus dem Morgenlande,” 1778) was followed in this direction not only by Goethe (in the “Westöstlicher Divan” at least, whilst subsequently in his “Kunst und Alterthum” he declared for Umbreit’s view that the whole possessed dramatic unity), but also by most of the theological commentators and critics down to the 20 th year of the present century, particularly Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Augusti, de Wette, in their Introductions to the Old Test.; Kleuker, Gaab, Döderlein, Gesenius, Paulus, Döpke, and many others. And at a still later period, after Ewald (1826), Koester (in Pelt’s “Theologische Mitarbeiten,” 1839), Umbreit (“Erinnerung an das hohe Lied,” 1839) and others had contended for the unity of the poem with considerable energy and success, Ed. Isid. Magnus (Kritische Bearbeitung und Erklärung des Hohenliedes Salomo’s, Halle, 1842) with the greatest expenditure of acuteness and learning sought to prove that the whole originated from uniting a number of erotic songs and sonnets in an anthology. This “floral collection” contains according to him fourteen complete odes besides a number of fragments, which may all but one ( Song of Solomon 2:15, fragment of a drinking song) be combined into three longer odes, together with two later supplements to two of these17 or18 pieces, thus making in all twenty distinguishable constituent parts, independent from one another in origin, and produced by several different poets at various periods. The seeming microscopic exactness of this investigation of Magnus made an impression upon several of the later critics, notwithstanding the evidently arbitrary manner in which the separate portions of the text “are shaken up together at pleasure like the bits of colored stone in a kaleidoscope.” Theod. Mundt, in his “Allgem. Literaturgeschichte,” 1849 (I, 153) considers it settled that the Song of Solomon is an anthology of disconnected popular erotic songs. E. W. Lossner (Salomo und Sulamith 1851) in his exegesis of the Song chiefly proposes to himself the task of “inventing some connection between the fragments thrown together in wild confusion.” And Bleek in his “Einleitung in’s A. T.” (2d edit, 1865, p641), edited by Kamphausen, thinks that with the admission that the whole, as it now exists, proceeded from one redactor, he must connect the assumption “that it contains sundry erotic Song of Solomon,” Song of Solomon, too, only a part of which were composed with reference to Song of Solomon, the greater portion having “relation to persons of the condition of shepherds,[FN5] and in the country.”—The interpolation-hypothesis of the two Jewish interpreters, A. Rebenstein and Dan. Sanders, is likewise based upon at least a partial dissection of the poem, the former of whom, in his “Lied der Lieder” (1834), the latter in Busch’s “Jahrbüch. der Israeliten,” 1845, and in his little treatise lately issued, “das Hohelied Salomonis” (Leipzig, O. Wigand, 1866), maintain that at least chap3.—either the entire chapter, as Rebenstein imagines, or its first five verses, as Sanders makes it—and the concluding verses Song of Solomon 8:8-14 are later insertions, and that the book “purged” of these alleged spurious additions contains four songs relating to Solomon’s love for Shulamith and so far connected, but which are now out of their original order and somewhat divided. These four songs or sections of the “Idyl” are: 1) Song of Solomon 1:1-6; Song of Solomon 8:12; Song of Solomon 1:7 to Song of Solomon 2:6; Song of Solomon 2) Song of Solomon 2:7-17; Song of Solomon 4:1 to Song of Solomon 5:1; Song of Solomon 3) Song of Solomon 5:2 to Song of Solomon 6:10; Song of Solomon 4) Song of Solomon 3:6-11; Song of Solomon 6:11 to Song of Solomon 8:7.
The internal grounds for the unity and integrity of the whole, as they have been recently put together by Delitzsch particularly (“das Hohelied untersucht und ausgelegt,” Leipz, 1851, p 4 ff.), following up the previous presentation of them by Ewald, Umbreit, etc. (see above) are decisive against all these fragmentary and crumbling hypotheses, not to speak of the uniformity throughout of the style of the language (of which more particularly in § 4). The first five and the weightiest of these grounds are: 1) The name of Solomon runs through the whole, Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 3:7; Song of Solomon 3:9; Song of Solomon 3:11; Song of Solomon 8:11-12; those passages also are to be included, in which he and no other is called המלך, “the king,” Song of Solomon 1:4; Song of Solomon 1:12; comp. Song of Solomon 7:6. 2) Throughout the whole there appears in addition to the lover and his beloved a chorus of בנותירושלים, “daughters of Jerusalem.” These are addressed Song of Solomon 1:5; Song of Solomon 2:7; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 5:8; Song of Solomon 5:16; Song of Solomon 8:4; and in Song of Solomon 3:10 something is said about them. This shows the sameness in the dramatic constitution of the whole3) Throughout the whole mention is only made of the mother of the beloved, Song of Solomon 1:6; Song of Solomon 3:4; Song of Solomon 8:2, (5), never of her father4) Distinct portions of the whole begin and end with the same or similar words in the style of a refrain. A new paragraph begins three times with the question of surprise, מיזאתוגו, “Who is this,” etc., Song of Solomon 3:6; Song of Solomon 6:10; Song of Solomon 8:5; the adjuration of the daughters of Jerusalem not to waken [her] love three times forms the conclusion, Song of Solomon 2:6 f.; Song of Solomon 3:5; Song of Solomon 8:3 f. So the summons to the lover to spring over the mountains like a gazelle manifestly stands twice at the end of a section, Song of Solomon 2:17, comp. Song of Solomon 2:8; and Song of Solomon 8:14. 5) The whole is permeated too by declarations on the part of the maiden concerning her relation to her lover which are couched in identical terms. Twice she says “My beloved is mine and I am his, who feeds among the roses,” Song of Solomon 2:16; Song of Solomon 6:3; twice “I am sick of love,” Song of Solomon 2:5; Song of Solomon 5:8; and not only in Song of Solomon 3:1-4, but as far back as Song of Solomon 1:7 she calls her lover שאהבהנפשי “he whom my soul loves.” Likewise the address of the chorus to the beloved runs in a uniform strain, Song of Solomon 1:8; Song of Solomon 5:9; Song of Solomon 6:1, “thou fairest among women.”—The last of these arguments contains (as does also No1) a special refutation of Rebenstein’s and Sanders’ objections to the genuineness or integrity of Song of Solomon 3. What are regarded as well by these critics as by the rest of those who impugn the unity of this book, as repetitions or imitations by a later hand, are shown by a true insight into the dramatic composition of the whole to be the necessary repetition of certain characteristic formulas purposely made by the poet himself. And as well in this as in all other respects the final judgment passed by Delitzsch, p6, upon the whole controversy respecting the unity and integrity of the Song of Solomon, seems to be abundantly justified: “He who has any perception whatever of the unity of a work of art in human discourse, will receive an impression of external unity from the Song of Solomon, which excludes all right to sunder any thing from it as of a heterogeneous character or belonging to different periods, and which compels to the conclusion of an internal unity, that may still remain an enigma to the Scripture exposition of the present, but must nevertheless exist.” Comp. also Vaihinger, der Prediger und das Hohelied, p258 f.
Remark3. In respect to the poetic and artistic form of the Song of Solomon, provided its unity is admitted, and due regard is paid to the dialogue character of the discourse, there are on the whole but two views, that can possibly be entertained, that it is an idyl or bucolic carmen amœbœum, and that it is a proper drama though with a prevailing lyric and erotic character. The former supposition was adopted by some of the older interpreters mentioned by Carpzov, Introd. in libros canonicos V. T., and after them by L. Hug (“das Hohelied in einer noch unversuchten Deutung,” 1813, and “Schutzschrift” 1816), who urges in its favor the rural and pastoral character of most of the scenes and the prevalence of the same form of alternate discourse between two lovers. He has, however, remained almost alone among modern students of the Old Test. in this opinion as well as in the allegorical and political explanation of the Song connected with it, as though it were a colloquy between the ten tribes of Israel and the King of Judah. Only another catholic, Herbst (Einleitung in’s A. T, edited by Welte, 1842) substantially agrees with him; and the idyllic form of the whole as a group of twelve songs or scenes is likewise maintained by A. Heiligstedt in his continuation of Maurer’s Commentar. Gramm. Crit. in V. T., (IV:2, 1848). The decisive consideration against this idyllic hypothesis[FN6] is the constant change of scene in the Song of Solomon, the frequent transfer of the locality from the country to the city, and from Solomon’s palace to Shulamith’s homestead, also the repeated change of actors and the unequal length of the intervals of time between the several scenes. All these peculiarities are foreign to the nature of the idyl or pastoral poem, and agree better with the view that the Song is a proper drama. The dialogue scenes, separated in time and place, are closely connected together by their common reference to one and the same loving relation; and with a strict maintenance of the characters introduced, though without a proper plot, they visibly depict the historical progress of the relation between a royal lover and his beloved raised from an humble position to princely splendor and exaltation. No essential characteristic of dramatic composition is wanting in this poem: from beginning to end it contains conversations between two or more persons alternating with monologues or with narrations of what had been said by others; a chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem accompanies the whole progress of the action and takes part in it; the several scenes are more or less plainly separated from one another, and at certain principal points, at least, are distinguished by the recurrence of final or initial refrains. Only we must not go so far in maintaining the dramatic character of the piece as to allege with Ewald (d. poet. Bücher des A. Bds. 2 Aufl. 1866, I:73 ff.) that it was actually designed for public representation, or even with Böttcher (“die ältesten Bühnendichtungen,” Leipz, 1850; and “Neue exegetisch-krit. Aehrenlese” 3. Abtheil. 1865, p76 ff.) and Renan (Le Cantique des Cantiques, p 83 ff.) that it was actually exhibited in the form of a play to be sung and accompanied by mimic acting, that is to say, in the style of the Sicilian-Dorian mimes, the Etruscan fescennines, the Campanian and old Roman fabulæ Atellanæ, etc. In opposition to such an exaggeration of the dramatical view into the grossly realistic, Hitzig’s remark (das Hohelied erklart, etc., p7,) continues in force almost without limitation. “If the piece actually came upon the stage it would be necessary for a speaker, where the language of other parties was introduced into the midst of his own, to change his voice so as actually to imitate the voices of others, and not to leave this distinction to the imagination merely: but the cases occur too frequently ( Song of Solomon 2:10-15; Song of Solomon 5:2-3; Song of Solomon 6:10; Song of Solomon 7:1,) and the matter appears quite too complicated for this to be credible. The author would also assume the place of the chorus, and take part himself in the play; Song of Solomon 5:1b, (??—see against this improbable view § 2, Remark1, p8); but then the piece also ceases to be objective to him, i.e., to be a drama to him. The poem certainly has a dramatic structure; but Song of Solomon 2:8 already proves that the author has not the power to continue in so objective an attitude, and he slides into the more convenient path of description and narration. The action is often hidden behind an imperfect dialogue; and this is easily superseded by a prolonged discourse requiring no answer; or if one is made, it is slim and scanty ( Song of Solomon 7:11; Song of Solomon 4:16). Finally one may well ask, if the piece were actually performed, what would be its moral effect, which must have been foreseen, and therefore intended? Would not Song of Solomon 7:2-10 represented on the stage have transferred the illicit desires[FN7] of the speaker to the soul of the spectators? How could the sensuality of the auditor excited by Song of Solomon 4:9-10; Song of Solomon 4:12 ff, be prevented from taking fire even in an extra-nuptial direction? The Song of Solomon is a drama which the poet saw in the spirit, as the apocalyptic (prophets) Daniel and John had a series of scenes pass before their spiritual eye.”—Delitzsch, too, emphasizes in opposition to Böttcher’s view of the mimic performance of the Song of Solomon in the form of a rude and “unenviable” stage play of the times of the Israelitish kings, the ideal character of its artistic and dramatic form, and the morally pure and elevated spirit which it manifestly breathes from beginning to end. He puts it, herein following the lead of Lowth (de sacra poesi Hebr. prœl. 30 ff, and Ewald (Poet. B., 1st. edit, I:40 ff, Comp 2 d edit, I:73) as a representative of the sacred comedy of the Old Test, beside the book of Job as the chief product of the tragic art of the O. T. people of God. This designation may be allowed to pass as appropriate in the general, and not liable to be misunderstood. Nevertheless the essential character of the artistic form employed in this composition seems to be more accurately designated by the expression “melodrama” (v. Ammon) or lyrico-dramatic poetry, inasmuch as the relation of this form to that of the book of Job (as the epico-dramatic, or didactic-dramatic) is thus not only strikingly brought out, but also those defects and imperfections pointed out in the passage cited above from Hitzig in the carrying out of the dramatic form, which is often exchanged for the purely lyric, are thus accounted for.