Song of Solomon 6 explained: Belonging to Each Other Again

Where has he gone? (vv. 1-3)

The friends from the last chapter ask where her lover is, and she says he is in his garden; many readers take the garden as a picture of her, since he called her a garden in chapter 4. Her line about belonging to him and him to her repeats 2:16 with the order flipped, a plain statement that they belong to each other.

Stunned by her beauty (vv. 4-7)

He compares her to Tirzah, an early royal capital, and to Jerusalem, and calls her as overwhelming as an army with banners, though the exact sense of that last phrase is debated. Her eyes overpower him, and he repeats his praise from chapter 4: dark hair flowing like goats down a hillside, white teeth in a full matched set, and rosy temples like a split pomegranate.

Only one like her (vv. 8-10)

A king might have sixty queens, eighty concubines (secondary wives of lower rank) and countless young women, but to him she is the only one. Even those women praise her, and verse 10 is probably their words, comparing her to the dawn, the moon and the sun.

Down to the nut grove (vv. 11-12)

Someone, probably the woman though it could be the man, goes down to a grove to see whether spring growth has come, which many read as a picture of love ripening. Verse 12 is one of the hardest in the book: the Hebrew is unclear, translations differ widely, and no one is sure what it means.

Come back, Shulammite (v. 13)

Onlookers call her back so they can gaze at her, and someone asks why they would stare at her as at the 'dance of Mahanaim,' a phrase that may refer to a place or mean 'two camps,' and that no one can fully explain. The name 'Shulammite' appears only here, and scholars are unsure whether it means a woman from Shunem or is a feminine form of Solomon's name.

Key verse: Song of Solomon 6:3

Where Christians differ

Jewish tradition has long read the Song as a picture of God's love for Israel, and many Catholic, Orthodox and older Protestant readers have read it as Christ and the church or the soul, while many modern readers of all traditions take it first as poetry about human love, and some hold both readings together.

Something to think about

What do you think makes belonging to someone feel like a gift rather than a loss of freedom, or can it be both at once?