YHWH’s Flame: A Love Metaphor in the Song of Songs

Shalhevetyah שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה, Song of Songs 8:6, a word appearing only here in the Bible, expresses the power of love by evoking the fiery destructive force of YHWH.

Dr.

Danilo Verde

Dr.

Danilo Verde

Categories:

Passover

YHWH’s Flame: A Love Metaphor in the Song of Songs

The Song of Songs, a collection of poems expressing the erotic love between a man and a woman, is beloved for the beauty of both its poetry and its content.^[1] The artistry of the Song is widely recognized,^[2] and yet its various philological problems, including several hapax legomena—words that only occur once in the Bible and are therefore difficult to understand—leave many verbal flourishes unclear.[3] In the Middle Ages, Saadia Gaon, the Egyptian-Babylonian Jewish philosopher and polemicist, quite appropriately compared the poem to “a lock whose key has been lost.”[4]

Shalhevetyah—What Does It Mean?

One of the Song’s hapax legomena is the word שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה:

^{שיר השירים ח:ו} שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה.

^{Song 8:6} Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, shalhevetyah.

The morphology and basic meaning of the word is clear:

ל.ה.ב—This verbal root means “to blaze,” and the noun form “flame or blade.”

שׁ š-prefix—This is a causative שׁפעל form borrowed from Aramaic (which borrowed it from Akkadian),^[5] parallel to the Hebrew הפעיל, and thus “something that causes a blaze,” i.e., a flame.^[6]

ת tav—This ending is a sign that the word is grammatically feminine and in the construct state, so “flame of…”

יה “yah”—This final element is a common, shortened form of י־הוה. Its use here has generally been explained in one of two ways:

1. Flame of YHWH—The term יָהּ (Yah), on its own, is an abbreviation of the tetragrammaton “YHWH.” Thus the term can mean something like “flame of YHWH” or “divine/God-like flame.” According to some scholars, the manuscripts which separate the two words with a meteg, שלהבת־יה, supports this translation.^[7]

2. Raging Flame—yah, as a shortened divine name, could also be a word ending that functions as an intensifier.^[8] Think of the English phrase “God-awful.” Other Hebrew lexemes, in which the ending יה is commonly regarded as emphatic, are מַאְפֵּלְיָה, “thick darkness” (Jer 2:31) and מֶרְחָב יָהּ, “broad place” (Ps 118:5).^[9] The lack of any other mention of YHWH in the Song supports this reading.

If Yah here really is a reference to YHWH, does this mean that the poem—this specific one or the book in general—should be read as relating to God?

Evidence for the Allegory Theory?

For many centuries, most Jews and Christians have read the Song as a poem about the love relationship between YHWH/Christ on one hand, and Israel/the Church/the soul/Mary, on the other.^[10] The vast majority of modern scholars, however, interpret the Song as referring to human love.

Yet, the allegorical reading of the Song has continued to attract followers, however few, throughout the entire 20^th and even in the 21^st century.^[11]These scholars argue that the Song was written as an allegorical poem, in line with the longstanding biblical tradition of using human love as an image of divine love.^[12] Some have even pointed to Song 8:6 as sign of its original allegorical/symbolic nature.^[13] Nevertheless, I do not think that translating שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה as “flame of YHWH” supports an allegorical reading.^[14]

Ancient Witnesses

The Greek translation (LXX), dated between the 1^st century B.C.E. and the 1^st century C.E.,^[15] saw no reference to YHWH in the term, and renders as “its flames” (lit. “her flames,” φλόγες αὐτῆς),^[16] i.e., the flames of love (perhaps reading it as שׁלהבתוה, with yod/waw confusion).^[17] Assuming that the Song is a late biblical book,^[18] dating from the Hellenistic period, LXX Song has significant bearing on any attempt to determine how the multilingual Jewish readers would have understood the term.^[19]

The Syriac Peshitta (2^nd cent. C.E.) renders the Hebrew word in an Aramaic form, and adds a conjunctive “and” before the word, making it a hendiadys the previous word. In other words, it renders אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה “fire, flame” as נורא ושלהביתא (ܢܘܪܐ݂ ܘܫܠܗܒܝܬܐ) “fire and flame.” Whether or not this was in the translators Vorlage (original Hebrew) is unclear, but the Vetus Latina translates this way as well ignis et flammae, as does the Latin Vulgate, ignis atque flammarum.

It is striking that none of the ancient translators rendered the word as “the flame of Yah,” especially given that allegorical readings of the entire Hebrew Bible were becoming increasingly popular in the period between the 1^st cent. B.C.E. and the 3^rd cent. C.E.

One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer

The literal meaning of the Hebrew expression שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה in Song 8:6 is not self-evident but even if the word contains an explicit reference to YHWH, this would be inadequate evidence to suggest that the whole Song is an allegory. Biblical allegories often have a political/polemical intent,^[20] and biblical passages that function allegorically have clear hints suggesting their allegorical interpretation.^[21] For example, after Isaiah relates his parable of the vineyard in ch. 5, he notes:

^{ישעיה ה:ז} כִּי כֶרֶם יְ־הוָה צְבָאוֹת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִישׁ יְהוּדָה נְטַע שַׁעֲשׁוּעָיו...

^{Isa 5:7} For the vineyard of YHWH of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the seedlings he lovingly tended are the men of Judah…

Similarly, after the long account of Hosea marrying an unfaithful woman, we read:

^{הושע ג:א} וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֵלַי עוֹד לֵךְ אֱ‍הַב אִשָּׁה אֲהֻבַת רֵעַ וּמְנָאָפֶת כְּאַהֲבַת יְ־הוָה אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהֵם פֹּנִים אֶל אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וְאֹהֲבֵי אֲשִׁישֵׁי עֲנָבִים.

^{Hos 3:1} YHWH said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as YHWH loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”

Song of Songs does not share with biblical allegories these two important characteristics.

Especially When It Is Not a Swallow

Even if we translate the term שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה as “flame of Yah,” we do not necessarily need to interpret the entire poem in relation to YHWH. In this case, YHWH’s name is evoked specifically and only as part of a metaphor about love.

Love as a Warlike Deity

Several expressions in the verse evoke a mythological scenario of combat involving some ancient Near Eastern warlike gods.

^{שיר השירים ח:ו} שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה.

^{Song 8:6} Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, flame of Yah.

Mavet (death) and Sheʿol (grave/underworld) closely recall the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, in which the god Baal is said to be as strong as the god Mot/Death and descends into the underworld to defeat him.^[22] Aren M. Wilson-Wright recently argued (convincingly to my mind) that the expression “strong as death” is a formula of a Northwest Semitic combat myth.^[23]

Furthermore, resheph, often rendered as “flash,” is also the Hebrew name for a bellicose Canaanite god, Resheph, well-known in the Mediterranean as a deity connected with death.^[24] Thus, the expression “its flashes are flashes of fire,” also has a mythological character.^[25]

YHWH’s Fiery Jealousy

YHWH is also connected with the lexemes קנא, “jealousy/passion” and אש, “fire”:

^{דברים ד:כד} כִּי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵשׁ אֹכְלָה הוּא אֵל קַנָּא.

^{Deut 4:24} For YHWH your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.

Biblical texts often portray YHWH as fighting with fire, thunder, and lightning.^[26] In two cases, the verses actually use the root ל.ה.ב:

^{ישעיה ל:ל} וְהִשְׁמִיעַ יְ־הוָה אֶת הוֹד קוֹלוֹ וְנַחַת זְרוֹעוֹ יַרְאֶה בְּזַעַף אַף וְלַהַב אֵשׁ אוֹכֵלָה נֶפֶץ וָזֶרֶם וְאֶבֶן בָּרָד.

^{Isa 30:30} And YHWH will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones.

^{תהלים כט:ז} קוֹל יְ־הוָה חֹצֵב לַהֲבוֹת אֵשׁ.

^{Ps 29:7} The voice of YHWH flashes forth flames of fire.

The lexical proximity between these two texts and Song 8:6 is apparent. The mythological imagery continues in the next verse:

^{שיר השירים ח:ז} מַיִם רַבִּים לֹא יוּכְלוּ לְכַבּוֹת אֶת הָאַהֲבָה וּנְהָרוֹת לֹא יִשְׁטְפוּהָ...

^{Song 8:7} Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it….

While “many waters” might simply refer to abundant waters,^[27] the term can evoke YHWH’s mythological enemies.^[28] The combination of Hebrew lexemes for floods here is paralleled only in contexts of war between YHWH and his aqueous enemies.^[29]

In sum, Song 8:6–7 employs several mythological motifs belonging to ancient Near Eastern literature, Baal, Mot, Sheol, Resheph, as well as the Hebrew Bible’s bellicose YHWH. At the same time, the text does not mean to evoke any one of the deities. Instead, the text is using this broad ancient Near Eastern imagery to say that love is akin to a godlike warrior, or a warlike god with respect to strength and vehemence or fierceness, which are mentioned in v. 6.^[30] This fits perfectly with the military language that the Song elsewhere employs to represent the lovers and their courtship.^[31]

It’s about Love Not YHWH

In other words, regardless of how we translate שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה (raging flame or flame of Yah), this lexeme expresses the metaphor “Love is YHWH’s flame,” which the ancient translators may not have recognized or may have decided to leave implicit, as it is implicit in the Hebrew. Song 8:6 attributes some of the characteristics of the flame of YHWH (source) to human love (target), exactly as, for example, the metaphor “Achilles is a lion” is about Achilles and not lions, “time is money,” is about time and not money, and “love is a battlefield,” is about love and not battle.

This is entirely different than allegorical writing. Whereas allegory speaks of A but intends B, metaphor speaks of A in light of B. All we can say is that Song 8:6 depicts the love between man and woman in light of how ancient Israel conceptualized the divine, including YHWH, namely as raging, vehement, unstoppable, and fierce.^[32] But this does not make the Song as a whole into a book about YHWH.

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Published

March 26, 2023

Last Updated

April 12, 2024

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Footnotes

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Published

March 26, 2023

Last Updated

April 12, 2024

[1] Great enthusiasm for this short biblical book can already be found within the Song itself, and more precisely in Song 1:1, which is usually considered the title of the poem: שיר השירים אשר לשלמה (“The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s”). Indeed, the very first two words, שיר השירים (“The Song of Songs”), are a superlative that conveys the emphatic idea that the Song is not just a song among many others; it is rather the song par excellence. Expressions of admiration for the Song are found throughout the Jewish and Christian traditions. One need only think of Rabbi Akiva’s (ca. 50 – 135 CE) statement that, “all of eternity in its entirety is not as worthy as the day on which Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies” (Mišnah, Yadayim, 3,5); or of the Song’s prominent role in the Jewish liturgies of Shabbat and Passover, as well as in medieval Jewish and Christian mysticism. Great appreciation for the Song is clearly attested also in modern (secular) literature and even in current pop culture. To give just a couple of examples, according to the Austrian philosophical writer Robert Musil (1880–1942), “There is nothing more beautiful than the Song of Songs” (The Man without Qualities); in 2020, Italian actor and director Roberto Benigni decided to entertain the audience of the Sanremo Festival – the most popular Italian song contest – with a monologue on the Song and a very intense reciting of its eight chapters, which still remains vividly impressed in the memory of many Italians.

[2] To appreciate the beauty of the Song’s poetry, see Francis Landy, Paradoxes of Paradise: Identity and Difference in the Song of Songs, BLS 7 (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1987); Beauty and the Enigma: And Other Essays on the Hebrew Bible, JSOTSup 312 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). See also Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 2011 [1985]), 231–254; Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “Le Cantique: La fabrique poétique,” in Les nouvelles voies de l’exégèse: en lisant le Cantique des cantiques, eds. Jacques Nieuviarts and Pierre Debergé, LD 190 (Paris: Cerf, 2002), 159–184; Fiona C. Black, The Artifice of Love: Grotesque Bodies in the Song of Songs, LHBOTS 392 (London: Clark, 2009).

[3] For a survey and discussion of contended issues in the Song, see Cheryl J. Exum, Song of Songs, OTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster-John Knox Press, 2005), 1–86; Gianni Barbiero, Song of Songs: A Close Reading, trans. Michael Tait, VTSup 144 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 1–44.

[4] Quoted in Marc Z. Brettler, “Unresolved and Unresolvable Problems in Interpreting the Song,” in Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs, eds. Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 185 [185–198].

[5] For the š-prefix, see Edouard Lipiński, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, OLA 80 (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 387.

[6] The lexeme שלהבת occurs in Ezek 21:3; Job 15:30; Sir 51:4; 1QH 16:30; 1QM 6:3. See also the nouns ‎להב, “flame/blade” in Judg 3:22; 13:20; Isa 13:8; 29:6; 30:30; 66:15; Joel 2:5; Nah 3:3; Job 39:23; 41:13, and להבה, “flame/blade” in Num 21:28; 1 Sam 17:7; Isa 4:5; 5:24; 10:17; 43:2; 47:14; Jer 48:45; Ezek 21:3; Hos 7:6; Joel 1:19; 2:3; Obad 1:18; Ps 29:7; 83:15; 105:32; 106:18; Lam 2:3; Dan 11:33. See also the verb להב, “to blaze” in 1QIsa^a 5:24.

[7] Kennicott found the reading שלהבת־יה in 116 manuscripts belonging to the Massoretic tradition of Ben Naphtali, and Rossi in 114 manuscripts. See Benjamin Kennicott (ed.), Vetus Testamentum hebraicum, cum variis lectionibus (Oxford: Calrendon, 1776–1780), 533; Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (ed.), Variae lectiones Veteris Testamenti (1784–1788), 233. Being the lectio difficilior, however, the reading שלהבתיה of the Ben Asher tradition is to be considered as being earlier.

[8] Among scholars who read the ending as an intensifier, see for instance Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Song (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 167; Exum, Song of Songs, 243; Elie Assis, Flashes of Fire: A Literary Analysis of the Song of Songs, LHBOTS 503 (New York: Clark, 2009), 236; Michael A. Fishbane, Song of Songs: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, NJPS Bible Commentary (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2015), 209. For the other reading, see Roland E. Murphy, The Song of Songs: A Commentary on the Book of Canticles or the Song of Songs, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1990), 190; Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs, NICOT (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 207; Yair Zakovitch, Das Hohelied, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 270; Jesús Luzarraga, Cantar de los Cantares: Sendas del amor, Nueva Biblia española: Comentario teológico y literario (Estella: Verbo Divino, 2005), 567; Barbiero, Song of Songs, 436; Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Das Hohelied der Liebe (Freiburg: Herder, 2015).

[9] Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible other lexemes for God, אל and אלהים, are used to form the superlative (e.g. Gen 30:8). See David Witton Thomas. “Some Unusual Ways of Expressing the Superlative in Hebrew,” VT 3 (1953): 221 [209–227].

[10] Editor’s note: For some exceptions, see Barry Dov Walfish, “Song of Songs: The Emergence of Peshat Interpretation,” TheTorah (2018).

[11] See Paul Joüon, Le cantique des cantiques: Commentaire philologique et exégétique, Bijbel. 44 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1909); A. Robert and R. Tournay, Le Cantique des Cantiques: Traduction et commentaire, EtB (Paris, 1963). See also Edmée Kingsmill, The Song of Songs and the Eros of God: A Study in Biblical Intertextuality, OTM (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). More recently, it has been argued that the Song is about both human and divine love. See Nina S. Heereman, “Behold King Solomon on the Day of His Wedding”: a Symbolic-Diachronic Reading of Song 3,6-11 and 4,12-5,1, BETL 320 (Leuven: Peeters, 2021). This is not a mere “quirk” of a few exegetes, though. See, Annette Schellenberg and Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger (eds.), Interpreting the Song of Songs: Literal or Allegorical? Biblical Tools and Studies 26 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016). The German biblical scholar Karl Budde was too hasty when, at the very beginning of the 20th century, he laconically wrote that “the age of allegorical explanation of the Song of Solomon has passed.” Karl Budde, “The Song of Songs,” in The New World 3 (1894): 56 [56–77].

[12] See Isa 51:17, 21–22; 52:1–2; 7–8, 12; 54:4–8; 61:10–11; 62:4–5; Jeremiah 31; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2–3.

[13] See e.g. Heereman, A Symbolic-Diachronic Reading, 766;, Paul Beauchamp, L’un et l’autre Testament, Vol.2 : Accomplir les Ecritures, Parole de Dieu, 28 (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 180.

[14] The use of the Song in religious contexts – for instance within liturgical contexts, in private devotion, or simply within the context of the biblical canon – unavoidably made and still makes the Song acquire also other meanings, regardless of how professional exegetes address the poem’s many philological enigmas. As the 6th century pope Gregory the Great said, the meaning of Scriptures cum legentibus crescit, grows with (and thanks to) its readers. Gregorius Magnus, Moralia in Iob. Libri XI–XXII, ed. Marci Adriaen, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 143 (Turnholti: Brepols, 1979), XX, I, 1.

[15] As for LXX Song, that this translation is to be dated between the 1^st cent. B.C.E. an the 1^st cent. C.E. is the current scholarly consensus, and it is widely recognized as a literal, perhaps slavish, rendering of the Hebrew. See Dries De Crom, LXX Song of Songs and Descriptive Translation Studies, De Septuaginta investigationes 11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), 12–14.

[16] “Love” is grammatically feminine in both Greek (ἀγάπη) and Hebrew (‎אהבה).

[17] I thank Marc Brettler for this suggestion.

[18] In my view, we can only date the Song based on its language. F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp has provided the most comprehensive and compelling research on this subject, showing that the Song’s language is much closer to the phase of Hebrew language known as “Late Biblical Hebrew” with respect to orthography, grammar, syntax, and lexicon. See F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp, “Late Linguistic Features in the Song of Songs,” in Perspectives on the Song of Songs/Perspektiven der Hoheliedauslegung, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn, ZAW 346 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 27–77. More recently, Torleif Elgvin has argued in favor of dating the final composition of the Song to the Hasmonean and Early-Herodian periods. See Torleif Elgvin, The Literary Growth of the Song of Songs During the Hasmonean and Early-Herodian Periods, Biblical Exegesis and Theology 89 (Leuven: Peeters, 2018).

[19] The LXX Song’s translation of שלהבתיה is also found in Origen’s fragments, dating to the 3rd cent. CE, which are particularly important since Origen (c. 185–254 CE) is one of the very first Christian theologians commenting extensively on the Song. See Orig., Fragm. 87 (Prokop 363; Barbàra 80), in Alfons Fürst and Holger Strutwolf (eds.), Origenes: Die Homilien und Fragmente zum Hohelied, Werke mit deutscher Übersetzung 9/2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 236. Unfortunately, in what is left of his Hexapla, we cannot find any translation for the lexeme in question. See Friedrich Field (ed.), Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt, sive veterum interpretum graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum fragmenta, Tomus 2: Jobus, Malachias. Actarium et indices (Oxonii: E typographeo Clarendoniano, 1875), 423.

[20] Roland Boer, “National Allegory in the Hebrew Bible,” JSOT 74 (1997): 95–116; James M. Kennedy, “Peasants in Revolt: Political Allegory in Gen 2–3,” JSOT 47 (1990): 3–14; Joel Rosenberg, King and Kin: Political Allegory in the Hebrew Bible (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 1986).

[21] Brettler, “Unresolved and Unresolvable Problems in Interpreting the Song,” 186.

[22] KTU 1.6 vi: 17, 19, 20. See William F. Albright, “Archaic Survivals in the Text of the Canticles,” in Hebrew and Semitic Studies Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver: In Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday, 20 August 1962, eds. Winton Thomas and W.D. MacHardy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), 1–7.

[23] Aren M. Wilson-Wright, “Love Conquers All: Song of Songs 8:6b–7a as a Reflex of the Northwest Semitic Combat Myth,” JBL 134 (2015): 338 [333–345].

[24] Edouard Lipiński, Resheph: A Syro-Canaanite Deity, Studia Phoenicia 19; OLA 181 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009); Paolo Xella, “Resheph,” in The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd edition, ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst (Leiden: Brill, 1999 [orig. 1995]) 700–703.

[25] Editor’s note: For another example of terms or imagery that evoke foreign gods but are not an attempt to speak about them directly, see Aaron Demsky, “Sheger, Ashtoret and Ashtor – The Patron Gods of Transjordanian Shepherds,” TheTorah (2019).

[26] E.g. Exod 9:23–24, 28; 1 Sam 7:10; 2 Sam 22:14, 15; Ps 18:9–15; 21:10; 29:7; 46:10; 97:4; 144:6. For the Hebrew Bible’s military representations of YHWH, see Charlie Trimm, “YHWH Fights for Them!”: The Divine Warrior in the Exodus Narrative, G50.orgias Dissertations. Biblical Studies 58 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2014); Martin Klingbeil, Yahweh Fighting from Heaven: God as Warrior and as God of Heaven in the Hebrew Psalter and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography, OBO 169 (Fribourg: University Press, 1999); Tremper Longman and Daniel G. Reid, God Is a Warrior, Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 1995); Marc Z. Brettler, “Images of YHWH the Warrior in Psalms,” Semeia 61 (1993): 135–65; Patrick D. Miller, The Divine Warrior in Early Israel, HSM 5 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1975); Henning Fredriksson, Jahwe als Krieger: Studien zum alttestamentlichen Gottesbild (Lund: Gleerup, 1945).

[27] E.g. Isa 23:3; Jer 41:12; 51:13; Ezek 17:5, 8; 32:13; 2 Chr 33:4.

[28] Herbert G. May, “Some Cosmic Connotations of Mayim Rabbim, ‘Many Waters,’” JBL 74 (1955): 9–21. This is the case, for instance, in 2 Sam 22:17 and Ps 18:15–16, in which YHWH is depicted as a warrior drawing David/the psalmist out from many waters. Here we find the same metaphoric pattern fire-arrows/flashes-water of Song 8:7: first YHWH is depicted as being on fire (2 Sam 22:9, 13; Ps 18:9, 13) and sending out arrows and lightning (2 Sam 22:15; Ps 18:15); then he triumphs over the many waters and saves the supplicant (2 Sam 22:17; Ps 18:16).

[29] E.g. Ezek 31:15; Hab 3:2–15; Ps 93:3–4.

[30] The similes in Song 8:6 indeed explicitly highlight the properties with respect to which “A is like B.” This is what in cognitive linguistics is called focused cross-mapping as opposed to the phenomenon of open-mapping, which occurs when similes do not explicitly provide the elements with respect to which “A is like B” (e.g. Song 4:4: “Your neck is like the tower of David”). See William Croft and Alan D. Cruse, Cognitive Linguistics, Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 211–21.

[31] See Danilo Verde, Conquered Conquerors: Love and War in the Song of Songs, AIL 41 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2020).

[32] The reception history of the Song, within both Jewish and Christian traditions, is a clear testimony of the extent to which the Song has enflamed its readers’ religious and erotic passions, passions that for two millennia have found through the Song a common, scorching language. For the history of reception of the Song, see Ilana Pardes, The Song of Songs : A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), 22–135. For the idea that erotic experience and mystical experience share a common language, see Jean-Pierre Sonnet, “Érotique et mystique dans le Cantique des Cantiques,” in Bernard de Clairvaux: Sermons sur le Cantique des Cantiques, vol. 3: Sermons 33–50, eds. Paul Verdeyen and Raffaele Fassetta, SC 452 (Paris: Cerf, 2000), 365–386.

[5] For the š-prefix, see Edouard Lipiński, Semitic Languages: Outline of a Comparative Grammar, OLA 80 (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 387.

[10] Editor’s note: For some exceptions, see Barry Dov Walfish, “Song of Songs: The Emergence of Peshat Interpretation,” TheTorah (2018).

[12] See Isa 51:17, 21–22; 52:1–2; 7–8, 12; 54:4–8; 61:10–11; 62:4–5; Jeremiah 31; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2–3.

[13] See e.g. Heereman, A Symbolic-Diachronic Reading, 766;, Paul Beauchamp, L’un et l’autre Testament, Vol.2 : Accomplir les Ecritures, Parole de Dieu, 28 (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 180.

[16] “Love” is grammatically feminine in both Greek (ἀγάπη) and Hebrew (‎אהבה).

[17] I thank Marc Brettler for this suggestion.

[21] Brettler, “Unresolved and Unresolvable Problems in Interpreting the Song,” 186.

[23] Aren M. Wilson-Wright, “Love Conquers All: Song of Songs 8:6b–7a as a Reflex of the Northwest Semitic Combat Myth,” JBL 134 (2015): 338 [333–345].

[27] E.g. Isa 23:3; Jer 41:12; 51:13; Ezek 17:5, 8; 32:13; 2 Chr 33:4.

[29] E.g. Ezek 31:15; Hab 3:2–15; Ps 93:3–4.

[31] See Danilo Verde, Conquered Conquerors: Love and War in the Song of Songs, AIL 41 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2020).

Dr. Danilo Verde is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher of the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) affiliated to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. He holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies from the same University. His research focuses on metaphor, gender, trauma, and pain in the Hebrew Bible. Verde is the author of Conquered Conquerors: Love and War in the Song of Songs (SBL 2020), and co-editor (with Antje Labahn) of Networks of Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible (Peeters, 2020), and a thematic issue of the journal Open Theology (with Dominik Markl) titled Cultural Trauma and the Hebrew Bible (2022).

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