Shulamite Woman

Biblical Record

The designation "Shulamite" appears only once in the entire Bible, in Song of Songs 6:13, where it occurs twice. In the Hebrew Bible this verse is numbered 7:1. The King James Version renders it, "Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee." A scene follows in which she is watched as she dances.

Throughout the Song of Songs, a woman exchanges words of love with her beloved, while the daughters of Jerusalem speak at intervals. The woman describes herself by saying, "I am black, but comely" (Song of Songs 1:5). She also says that she was darkened by the sun because her brothers, angry with her, made her keep the vineyards (Song of Songs 1:6). Although this woman is commonly called the Shulamite throughout the book, the text uses the designation only in 6:13. The Bible records nothing else about her name, family, or life.

Significance Within the Bible

The Song of Songs celebrates the love between a man and a woman at greater length and more directly than any other book of the Bible. A distinctive feature is the prominence of the woman's voice. A representative declaration is "My beloved is mine, and I am his" (Song of Songs 2:16). Neither the other books of the Old Testament nor the New Testament mention the Shulamite directly.

Interpretation and Issues

• Meaning of the name: Many hold that "Shulamite" derives from a place name. A widely known view takes it to mean a person from Shunem in northern Israel. Those who hold this view sometimes connect her with Abishag, the "Shunammite" who attended David in his old age (1 Kings 1:3), or with the Shunammite woman who showed hospitality to Elisha (2 Kings 4). The text, however, does not identify them as the same person. Another view reads the term as a feminine form of the name Solomon (Hebrew Shlomo), meaning "Solomon's partner."
• Allegorical interpretation: Allegorical interpretation reads the characters and events of a text as symbols pointing to other spiritual realities. Jewish tradition has read the Song of Songs as depicting the love between God and Israel. In Christianity, Origen, Bernard of Clairvaux, and others interpreted the bridegroom as Christ and the Shulamite as the church or the believer's soul. This reading is often explained in connection with Ephesians 5:31–32, which compares Christ and the church to husband and wife, and with the bridal imagery of Revelation.
• Literal interpretation: Modern scholarship and commentaries from many denominations strongly tend to read the Song of Songs as poetry celebrating the God-given love and marriage of a man and a woman. Some interpreters accept both readings together.
• Dramatic theories: One view regards the Song of Songs as the story of two characters, Solomon and the Shulamite. A three-character theory sees it as the story of a country maiden who rejects the king's advances and returns to her shepherd lover at home. Such plots, however, are not stated in the text itself but are reconstructions by interpreters. Scholars also disagree about whether the beloved is Solomon and whether the Song of Songs is a single story or a collection of several songs.

In the Korean Church

In the Korean church, preaching that interprets the Song of Songs as the love between Christ and the church, or between the Lord and the believer, has a long history. In such sermons the Shulamite is often presented as the bride longing for the bridegroom, that is, as a picture of the believer. At the same time, sermons and lectures on marriage and married life sometimes treat the Song of Songs as a text that affirms the love between a man and a woman.