Song of Songs 3

Song of Songs 3 is the third of the eight chapters of the Song of Songs. It continues the songs of the two lovers who longed for each other in Song of Songs 2. In this chapter the woman sets out in search of the one she loves.

Outline

• Verses 1–4 At night, lying on her bed, the woman cannot find the one she loves. She rises and goes about the city, through its streets and broad ways, and questions those who patrol the city (KJV "the watchmen that go about the city"). Scarcely has she passed them when she finds the one she loves; she holds him and brings him into her mother's house.
• Verse 5 By the roes and by the hinds of the field, she charges the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up or awaken her beloved until he pleases. This repeats the refrain first found in 2:7.
• Verses 6–11 A procession like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, comes out of the wilderness. It is Solomon's palanquin (KJV "bed" and "chariot"), escorted by sixty valiant men of Israel girded with swords. The palanquin is made of the wood of Lebanon; its pillars are of silver, its base of gold, and its seat of purple. The daughters of Zion are called to behold King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day.

Key Verses

• Song of Songs 3:1 "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth" — introduces the chapter's theme of longing and seeking.
• Song of Songs 3:5 "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please" — a refrain repeated throughout the book.
• Song of Songs 3:11 "In the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart" — a verse in which the Song of Songs refers directly to marriage.

People and Places

• The woman: the speaker in verses 1–5.
• The beloved: the lover whom the woman seeks.
• The daughters of Jerusalem: the group the woman addresses; in verse 11 they are called "the daughters of Zion."
• The watchmen: those who guard the city at night.
• Solomon: appears as the central figure of the palanquin procession and the wedding. His mother is not named in the text.
• Jerusalem and Zion: the city that forms the setting of the song.
• Lebanon: the source of the timber used for the palanquin, a region known for its fine cedars.

Interpretive Considerations

Interpreters differ on whether verses 1–4 describe an actual event or a scene in a dream or the imagination. A similar scene of seeking the beloved at night appears in Song of Songs 5:2 and following. Opinions also differ on whether verses 6–11 depict an actual wedding procession of Solomon or are a poetic expression that likens the bridegroom to a king.

Jewish tradition has read the Song of Songs as describing the relationship between God and Israel. Since the patristic era, Christian tradition has interpreted it as an allegory of the relationship between Christ and the church, or between Christ and the believer's soul. On this reading, the woman's search for her beloved is understood as a picture of the believer's longing for Christ. Many recent commentaries read the book first as poetry celebrating love and marriage between a man and a woman, and then add a spiritual meaning on that foundation.

The New Testament does not quote this chapter directly. However, its imagery of marriage and the bridegroom is sometimes read in connection with the analogy of Christ and the church in Ephesians 5:31–32.