Alright, so the second lesson of Song of Songs, I've entitled, I will seek him whom my soul loves. And this is going to be focusing on chapters one through four. Technically, it will also include chapter five, verse one, verse simplicity, second, just going to be chapters one through four. And the chapter's not very long.
I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able to read pretty much every single verse here. And that's going to be very, very helpful for us, because it is a very complicated book, as we discussed in the last lesson, when you laid the foundation and introduced the book. There's a lot of different traditional interpretations, a lot of interpretations in general, but some more predominant traditional interpretations. And what I decided to do is very briefly, before we dive into chapter one, verse one, and we try to make sense of all of the poetic symbolism here, is I just wanted to quickly review these traditional interpretations.
I've really narrowed them down to the four most predominant, most prevalent ones. All of them are correct, but because I'm going to focus on a particular interpretation, or kind of a combo of interpretations, I just thought it would be very, very helpful to review these quickly. Okay, so, four traditional, predominant, prevalent interpretations is, number one, the erotic love interpretation. Now, this is pretty darn straightforward, right?
Anyone who reads the book of the Song of Song, Song of Solomon, is going to see this as celebrating the erotic love between a husband and his bride, right? It's, which is fine. That's very good, and that's very beautiful and very holy. God has established marriage as one of the great gifts and beautiful things, if not the greatest beautiful thing in this natural world, for men to women who fall in love and to enjoy their marital embrace and to have children be procured if that's all great.
So yes, this is celebrating covenantal, legitimate marital love as a gift between God, as gift from God, excuse me, between the groom and his bride, which is of course, symbolized by Solomon and his beloved is the Shulamite woman. We'll talk more about that word, Shulamite probably next lesson, I guess. That'll make more sense. So yeah, Solomon and his bride, all right?
They love each other, they want to be with each other, they want to celebrate their love between each other, great. Now, this view is kind of a secondary view, it's kind of a minor view, especially in tradition. I had mentioned in the last lesson that the council, the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople II in 553, the condemned this Theodore character because he interpreted the song of songs exclusively as this marital love interpretation, which is nothing wrong with that. But it's really interesting that they said, no, there's a lot more behind the song than just erotic marital love.
So that's just a really interesting historical tidbit there. All right, now I'm not going to be spending any time really at all looking at this interpretation in this lesson and the next lesson as we go through these eight chapters. It's very straightforward, right? Because what I actually think is going on here, following some really good commentaries is that the actual original intention of the author is this second traditional interpretation, which is the divine love or what's also called the allegorical interpretation, right?
The allegory is actually the original intention. And this is very, very strong, very prevalent throughout church tradition from the very earliest ages and even in Jewish tradition as well. So what is this? It's very simple.
It's that the book, the song of songs is celebrating the covenantal divine love between God and his people, which would be Israel or Jerusalem. So God is represented by the bridegroom or a.k.a. Solomon, the king, which is important because remember Solomon is the son of God. He kind of is a symbol, a type of God, and certainly a type of Jesus Christ.
So Solomon is a symbol and a type of God. And then of course the bride would be symbolizing Israel. And this is again very, very predominant and very, very beautiful. And I think this is the original intention of the book.
It's not my own or that's not my own alone in thinking that, of course. So just as your end of our Bible says here really quickly, just to share one brief quote for you, the exaltation and the joy of the bridegroom and the bride are signs and symbols of the restoration of an Israel that desires to be faithful to God and of God who is passionately in love with his people. And that really I think summarizes it whether it's pre-exile after exile. There's some background to that quote.
But the bottom line is that God is passionately in love with his people and he wed his people at Mount Sinai. And then of course, if you know the history of Israel, Israel was a pretty bad spouse, a pretty bad bride and she went out playing harlotry. She played the harlitz in so many instances. I'm not going to recap all that history.
The point is that God loves his people as a groom loves his bride. All right, now that's pretty traditional. Now, following upon that is the third one, the messianic or Christological interpretation. Obviously, this is also very predominant in Christian tradition, not in Jewish tradition for obvious reasons, although there's a little different take on that.
But the idea is that building upon the divine love interpretation is the idea that the bridegroom represents the Messiah. All right, now of course, the Jews think it's the Messiah to come. And Christians, of course, we know that the Messiah has already come as Jesus Christ. So it's the love between the Messiah and his bride, the church.
His bride, the people, right? Because the people of God, the chosen people of God is where the church now composed of both Jews and Gentiles. All right, so that really makes a lot of sense here as many interpreters and saints and mystics will say because Solomon is a type of Jesus Christ. As I said just a moment ago, he is a type of Christ.
Jesus is the new Solomon. And so it makes perfect sense that was Solomon is being depicted here, desiring his bride. It's really a sign and a symbol of Jesus, the Messiah who desires his bride, the church, Jews and Gentiles. And so again, just what comes to mind here is the many saints, excuse me, have pointed out that when Jesus says on the cross, I thirst, like saints, rest of the zoo would say, he's thirsting after souls.
He desires souls. So anyways, that's pretty straightforward, right? So B and C here, the divine love interpretation or the mystic interpretation is really two sides of the same coin. It's God who Jesus is God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ is God, who is represented by Solomon.
All right, very good. I'm going to focus a lot on that as we interpret this book together because there are so many references to God and to Israel as you studied this. And then one more point, one more interpretation that's very beautiful and it makes it very, very personal in your prayer life and your spiritual journey towards sanctification in name with God. It's called the mystical interpretation.
This is very, very prevalent and very strong in the Middle Ages and the later Middle Ages, which interprets the bridegroom Solomon as God and the Messiah, of course, but the bride is the human soul. It's each individual human soul and God truly desires each of us. This absolutely makes it personal. I mean, on the one hand, everyone could be like, oh, yeah, you know, God loves his people.
Jesus loves his bride to church. That makes sense. But when you stop and think about this for a moment in meditative prayer in Lexington, and you realize and hopefully you come to identify with the bride. It's easier for a woman than it is for a man for sure.
But you realize that God desires you and he desires each and every one of us. And our greatest love, the deepest love that we desire can only be fulfilled by Christ, our divine, bridegroom, the messianic bridegroom. That's really personal and really powerful. And that's where we're all called to that love.
Every single one of us is called to that love. So sure, there's a different interpretation here, but it really builds upon the previous ones that the bride is each and every one of us, each soul. Now, Saint Basil said this very beautifully. He says, the song of songs teaches how souls may be made perfect because it describes exactly the union between the lover and his beloved, which is a model of the intimacy and friendship between the divine word and the soul.
And that goes back into the early centers of the church, Saint Basil. Right. So these interpretations here, divine love, the other side of that coin is messianic love. All right.
And also the understanding that the bride represents the soul that's the mystical interpretation. That's what I want to focus on here. So I'm going to put aside the erotic love interpretation because I think that's all just a means to an end. Yes, of course, it's beautiful that God has created marriage for the union of spouses and for the procreation of children.
And but ultimately marriage is assigned an assembly of Christ in his church as Saint Paul says in Ephesians chapter five, which I'm actually going to go talk about that here pretty soon. All right. Now that misinterpreation one more little quick point before I move on. I said this at the end of the last lesson as well as in the Bible studies on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, but the song of songs represents this unit of stage of the spiritual life.
This is where we're all called to right. Perfect conformity to Christ crucified to the image of Christ where Christ lives in us and we live in him and our souls union with God has been perfected. That's what we're all called to on this earth. We don't make it.
That's the gift of purgatory, right? I know that non-Catholic Christians don't believe in purgatory. I mean, many on Catholic Christians do. It's actually really interesting.
The purgatory makes sense. It's a gift where our soul is perfected in its sanctification to be united with God before we can go into heaven. All right. So check out the end of the last lesson for all of that.
And I did this really quickly here in just a few minutes. I just wanted to set the stage again because I want to focus on the divine love, the messianic love and the mystical love interpretations. All right. Very good.
Now one more quick point is to review the organization of this song. Because remember that this is organized according to various dialogues. All the commentaries agree there's these various dialogues between the groom and the bride and the backup singers, which are the daughters of Jerusalem or the daughters of Zion. I like to call them the backup singers there because it's really between the groom and the bride, honestly, and their love back and forth to each other.
But you got the backup singers, the daughters of Jerusalem as well. And they're speaking and singing or whatever back and forth. And you got all these dream sequences as well throughout the whole book, right? And they're all organized in this chiastic structure and I'm really following the Catholic and the Old Testament because I think that they really hit the nail on the head on that one.
The ancient Catholic study Bible, they have a bit of an overlap as well. And others do is you're going to see a lot of overlap. There are some distinctions, but the Catholic introduction deal test and just such a wonderful job there. So following them, if you check out your notes or you happen to have that resource available, what you're going to see is the chiastic structure along the pattern with D being the center.
All right. So A, which is chapters one through two for seven, is this opening colloquy, this opening dialogue between the bride and the groom and the chorus of backup singers. And then B, the next section is the bridegroom's invitation to elope, which doesn't actually happen. And then C is this dream sequence of the bride where she's seeking the groom at night, which is very strange.
If in D is the center of the whole book, which is where Solomon and his bride, right to Jerusalem, which also actually does not happen. All right. So that's the center of the whole book and then it backs down back along the same path. We have C prime parallel C above.
We have a second dream sequence and then B prime parallel B above, which is a daytime sequence where the bridegroom right out together. And then finally, the book concludes with a prime, a final colloquy, a final dialogue between the bridegroom and the chorus. So very, very well structured and in chiastic structures are very theological because the center of the entire structure is the center of the book. And I'm going to break that down in this lesson because remember we're going all the way to chapter five verse one, more or less chapters one through four, but also including chapter five verse one.
And what you're going to see here is this anticipation, this desire for union between the bride and her beloved, the bridegroom. And that's really, really important here because contrary to what some commentaries will say, the wedding hasn't taken place. Conservation hasn't taken place. All right.
So you see this as other commentaries like the Catholic and Rickshield Testament says, you've what you find is all these dream sequences that take place and you've got this refrain, which we're going to study multiple times. Stir not up nor awake in love and tell it please. That's repeated so many times. And you also see, which we're going to study next lesson, the concluding scene of the bride.
She's proclaiming her virginity. She's proclaiming that she's ready for marriage and she's taken in procession to the wedding. That hasn't happened yet. So what that means is that there's this sense of expectancy, anticipation of a wedding, not yet consummated, which is really, really strange.
Why does this whole book celebrate the love between the bridegroom and the bride symbolizing God or the Messiah and or the Messiah as well as his people that hasn't taken place yet because this is pointing forward to the end of time really, right? So here's a quote from your Catholic and Rickshield Testament again and Haydock actually talks about this as well. It's given the dream character of the book and the fact that it ends with a marriage not yet consummated. The song would also take on a potential.
I don't think it's potential. I think it's intentional. A potentially eschatological outlook in so far as it ends with Jerusalem still waiting the coming up and getting with the bridegroom. End quote.
And that's really, really important here because again, if you understand that Solomon represents God and represents the Messiah to come in the Old Testament framework, they are waiting for the Messiah, right? They're waiting for the Messiah to come and to wait as people. And that's exactly what Jesus did. Jesus came in the first Advent to betrot himself to his people on the cross, which is what the Paschal Mysteries are all about, right?
Ransom, redemption of his people, cleansing of sin, and bringing his people, Jews and Gentiles to himself. He accomplishes them on the cross. But then also, so again, eschatological, I have to clarify again, eschatological, it's like the end times because the eschaton is the end or the last things. So what this is looking forward towards then is the second Advent where God, Jesus, the divine bridegroom Messiah, he will come at the end of time to wed his people and then the wedding supper of the Lamb will take place.
And I'm going to go to the book of Revelation later on here and you'll see what I'm talking about here. So I think that's 100% exciting and intentional here that this book is celebrating the love between God and his people between Christ and Messiah, the divine bridegroom and his people at church, but a wedding that hasn't been fully consummated yet because that's the description of heaven. It's only in heaven that this spiritual, metaphysical, real marriage between Christ and his bride takes place. When Christ comes again, he will lead his people, his bride in procession to the wedding supper of the Lamb.
So that should set the whole stage for us. And I know it's been 15 minutes now, but I really, really wanted to lay down really quickly the review of the interpretations that I think is most important. If you're just focusing on the erotic, narrow love interpretation, you're going to completely miss the boat, in my opinion. You're going to completely miss the boat and the point about what God is really trying to communicate to us, that he is our soul's desire and that we will be united to God and the Messiah forever, for all eternity in the wedding supper of the Lamb.
So that's why I'm making a big fuss about this because it really, I think, amocks the whole key to the book. Now, with that being said, then, let's look at chapter 1, verse 1. Now, oh, one more quick little point here. Just practically speaking.
When we look at this opening colloquy here, this opening dialogue between the bride and the groom and the back of singers, the daughters of Jerusalem, the daughters of Zion, a lot of people will ask, well, how do you know who's speaking? Because if you have just any common English translation, it doesn't matter what it is, you know, King James or Revise the interversion to NIV or the NIV or ESV, whatever, right? Whatever the translation is, you really don't know sometimes who's speaking. Well, the groom speaking is the bride speaking.
It's kind of confusing, right? Well, because Hebrew is a gendered language, there's gender and number, linguistic scholars point out very easy to know who's speaking, right? Because who's being addressed? If someone who's being addressed is the bride, well, then the groom is speaking.
All right, so you don't really see that in your English translation. So here's a little pro tip for you. Something that I do that has helped me a lot in just reading and reflecting upon this book is in the margins of the scriptures here. I put a little note on who's speaking.
Is it the groom? I put a G in my Bible for groom. Is it the bride speaking? Well, I put a bride right there in the margin.
Is it the daughters of Jerusalem, the chorus? You could put a C for chorus or a D for daughters of Jerusalem, whatever you want. But that's very, very helpful to put down what's the groom or the bride or the daughters of Jerusalem because when you come back and reflect upon this book, which remember is the holy of holies of the Old Testament, it is reflecting the unit of phase of the spiritual life, this reflecting our soul's deepest longing and desire for God, our divine bridegroom. It's a pretty important book to come back to, right?
So put G and B and D for groom, bride or daughters of Jerusalem in the margins of your book. And your Ignatius Catholic study Bible does a really great job of telling you who's speaking, right? So consult that resource and transfer it over into your Bible. You really want to you really want to highlight in your Bible is a good priest friend of mine calls it your working Bible, the Bible that you really write in, you highlight, you annotate.
This is your working Bible that you are studying and taking to prayer. And then you might have other Bibles that you don't want to write anything in because it's a family heirloom or it's really expensive and really beautifully done. And you just kind of want to protect that. But get yourself a working Bible and highlight in it and write in it.
All right, that being said, let's look at the opening call call weekly here, the dialogue between the bridegroom and the chorus. Hey, this is Dr. Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample.
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