Book Notice: Song of Songs

Last updated on: August 5, 2015 at 1:46 am by Michael F. Bird

Book Notice: Song of Songs 2015-07-29T18:51:02-04:00 Michael F. Bird

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James M. Hamilton

Song of Songs: A Biblical-Theological, Allegorical, Christological Interpretation
Focus on the Bible
Fearn, Ross Shire: Christian Focus, 2015.
Available at Amazon.com

By Jill Firth

James M. Hamilton Jr. is professor of biblical theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and preaching pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church. He is the author of God’s Glory in Salvation through Judgment; What Is Biblical Theology?: A Guide to the Bible’s Story, Symbolism, and Patterns; and the Revelation volume in the Preaching the Word commentary series.

This brief commentary on Song of Songs arose from a series of nine sermons at Kenwood Baptist Church in 2012. It is published by Christian Focus, which offers popular works on Scripture, theology and Christian living. An academic discussion of the Song is found in Hamilton’s earlier article, ‘The Messianic Music of the Song of Songs: A Non-Allegorical Interpretation’, WTJ 68 (2006): 331-45.

Hamilton is upfront in describing the hermeneutics of his approach, as a Biblical-Theological, Allegorical, Christological Interpretation. He originally considered the Song to be only about human love. However, continued reflection on the use of allegory in the OT led him to be more open to the idea that the Song may also have an allegorical reading. Marriage is used as a metaphor for God’s relation with Israel in other sections of the Old Testament, including the prophets Hosea, Jeremiah and Ezekiel (31). In fact, Hosea presents his own marriage with Gomer as a kind of allegory of the covenant between Yahweh and Israel. In the New Testament, Paul refers to Christ and the church as imaged in human marriages, and the Book of Revelation refers to the church as the Bride. Hamilton suggests that Solomon wrote an idealised account of the king’s romance and marriage, and expected his original readers to see a correspondence with the relationship between God and Israel.

The lush garden imagery deliberately evokes Eden, and recreates an ideal world ‘where all the women really would have been strong, all the men good-looking, and all the children above average’ (20). Hamilton argues that ‘the closest we get to being back in the Garden of Eden in the rest of the Bible is in the poetry of the Song of Songs’ (22, italics original). The Song is set in Jerusalem, and so also evokes the end point of the big story of the Bible, the king’s reign from Zion in the new heaven and the new earth.

The commentary looks at the Song at three levels of interpretation. The song offers us ‘a married couple gazing on one another as Adam and Eve must have in Eden’ (25). It is teaching us about married love. The man in the Song, a kingly descendant of David, typifies ‘the coming Messiah’, and the story also gives us an allegory of the love between God and his people (28). These levels are held together as couples are invited to trust in Jesus the Messiah, in order to build a true basis for their intimate relationship (30).

Hamilton’s hermeneutic and the proposed connections to other parts of the Canon may not all receive wide acceptance (for example on page 84, the link between Noah’s doves and the description of the eyes of the beloved as ‘like doves’ Song 4.1). Also controversial are the reading of the Song as one song, not as a collection of separate songs, and as a consecutive narrative depicting the development of a relationship between the idealised Solomon and his bride. Hamilton’s sincere desire to assist troubled marriages and to deepen the joy of good marriages is convincingly expressed, and the book will be a valuable guide for those who wish to apply this section of Scripture to their relationships as Christians.

Hamilton’s goals for the commentary are found on his blog,

‘I pray the Lord will use this little book to help people feel his love, stronger than death, a flame no waters can quench, and I pray it will heal and strengthen marriages, guide and bless Bible studies, and bring glory to the Bridegroom whose voice made the Baptist rejoice.’

Jill Firth teaches Hebrew and Old Testament at Ridley College in Melbourne.

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