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World English Bible: Song of Solomon

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This is the Song of Songs (also called Song of Solomon), a lyric poem from the Hebrew Bible attributed to Solomon, belonging to the tradition of ancient Near Eastern love poetry. The work consists of a series of alternating dramatic monologues between a young woman (the Beloved) and her male lover, occasionally interjected by a chorus of "daughters of Jerusalem," celebrating their mutual desire and longing for one another. Its primary content is erotic and sensory: the two speakers lavish each other with elaborate praise using vivid natural imagery — vineyards, spices, flowers, animals, and landscapes — to describe physical beauty and the intensity of romantic love. A recurring tension drives the poem: the Beloved repeatedly searches for her absent lover, sometimes finding him, sometimes not, including a striking scene where she wanders the city at night and is beaten by watchmen. Distinctively, the poem is one of the few biblical texts with no explicit religious or theological content — God is never mentioned — yet it has been read by Jewish and Christian interpreters for centuries as an allegory for divine love. The female voice is unusually assertive for ancient literature, with the Beloved expressing desire, initiative, and self-possession ("I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me") in ways that have attracted significant modern scholarly attention.

World English Bible: Song of Solomon

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