Song of Solomon 8

This is the eighth and final chapter of the Song of Solomon. Following the songs of mutual praise between the two lovers in Song of Solomon 7, this chapter presents the woman's longing and her confession about love, and it brings the book as a whole to a close.

Outline

• Verses 1–4 The woman sings that if her beloved were like her own brother, she could kiss him outside without being despised and could bring him into her mother's house. She again charges the daughters of Jerusalem "that ye stir not up, nor awake my love."
• Verses 5–7 The woman is pictured coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved. She asks him to set her as a seal upon his heart and upon his arm, and she sings that love is strong as death and that many waters cannot quench it.
• Verses 8–10 The brothers discuss how they will protect their little sister, who is still young, and the woman answers that she is a wall and that she has found favor in his eyes.
• Verses 11–12 Solomon's vineyard at Baal-hamon, which yields a thousand pieces of silver, is contrasted with "my vineyard, which is mine."
• Verses 13–14 The one who dwells in the gardens is asked to let her voice be heard, and the book ends with a call to the beloved to make haste like a roe or a young hart.

Key Verses

• Song of Solomon 8:6 "For love is strong as death" – widely quoted as a verse that distills the theme of the entire Song.
• Song of Solomon 8:7 "Many waters cannot quench love" – speaks of the worth of a love that no wealth can buy.

People and Places

• The woman – the speaker of the Song, called "the Shulamite" in the preceding chapter.
• The beloved – the man for whom the woman longs.
• The daughters of Jerusalem – the group the woman addresses. See Jerusalem.
• The little sister and the brothers – family members who appear in verses 8–9.
• Solomon – appears in verses 11–12 as the owner of a vineyard.
• Baal-hamon – the place where Solomon's vineyard was located. Its exact location is unknown.

Interpretive Considerations

The Song of Solomon is a book on which interpretive traditions diverge sharply. Jewish tradition has read it allegorically as describing the relationship between God and Israel, and long-standing Christian tradition as describing the relationship between Christ and the church or between Christ and the believer. In recent times, many interpreters have also read it literally as poetry celebrating love and marriage between a man and a woman. The expression in verse 6 rendered in some translations as "the flame of the LORD" is also understood as a Hebrew idiom meaning "the most intense flame" (the KJV reads "a most vehement flame"), and scholars are divided over whether the expression should be taken as containing the divine name. Verse 4 repeats a refrain found in chapters 2 and 3, and verse 14 echoes language from the end of chapter 2. The New Testament does not quote the Song of Solomon directly. Christian interpreters sometimes read this chapter alongside [[에베소서 5장 31-32절|the passage in Ephesians that compares marriage to the mystery of Christ and the church]]. Some interpret the call in verse 14 as expressing a longing for the Second Coming, though this is an interpretation rather than something the text itself states.

In the Korean Church

Because verses 6–7 speak of the steadfastness of love, they are frequently used as sermon texts for wedding services.