A Fresh Start with the Song of Songs
For so long, I could not grasp the Song of Songs.
I examined the original Hebrew, traced the personal pronouns, and followed the
subjects of the verbs.
Who is speaking to whom?
Where do the voices change?
I kept working through the text. Yet I still could not understand what was being written.
Some readers told me they could not understand it either.
But to be truthful, the one who understood it least was me.
Would this book remain a troubling mystery to the very end?
That was what I had begun to think.
The Feast of Tabernacles came to an end, and our morning live sessions returned to
their usual rhythm.
Genesis chapter 3, Leviticus on Thursdays, and Daniel on Fridays.
After each live session, we read Scripture together. We are currently reading the Gospel of Matthew.
When we reached chapter 22, a thought suddenly came to me.
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Matthew 22:37 (Translated from the Japanese New Japanese Bible 2017)
The Gospel of Matthew speaks of Christ as King.
Yet as I read, it seems to ask where the reader's heart is directed.
What are you relying on?
Is it money?
Is it social standing?
What sustains you?
What is it that holds your heart?
The experts in the Law, the rich young man, and even the disciples seem to find themselves confronted with what occupies the throne of their own hearts.
God speaks.
Jesus speaks.
What does He say?
What is it that sustains your heart?
Through the events of His first coming, it seems as though this question is being addressed to the reader.
For about two years now, I have been approaching Scripture as a record of God speaking and human beings responding.
Along the way, I have gradually let go of the theological frameworks I had acquired.
I have also been letting go of my own fixed assumptions, one by one.
Simply standing before the Word, receiving it as it is.
As I continue doing so, I find myself here.
In everyday life, I am repeatedly made aware of where I stand.
Ever since I chose the Song of Songs as a subject for my blog, I have found myself at a loss every morning.
But now, belatedly, a thought has come to me.
God speaks of love.
Human beings respond to that love.
Perhaps the Song of Songs is a record of that response.
At last, I am beginning to see how I might approach this book.
The personal pronouns and grammatical subjects I have been tracing do not need to be discarded.
Who is speaking?
Who is responding?
Perhaps I can now begin to savor those movements of speech and response as responses to God's love, just as they appear in the text.
So, here I am, making a fresh start.
Let us walk once more through the forest of the Song of Songs, a book so elusive and perplexing.
Who is the first to speak?
Who speaks last?
And to whom are those voices directed?
Comments