Commentaries on Song of Solomon, a review

Over the last few weeks at the FreeWay we’ve been doing a verse-by-verse study through, of all books, the Song of Solomon.  I say, “of all books” like that, because, if you know this one, you’ll know that it’s not the most accessible book in the Canon.  And if you don’t know it, well, you may want to give it a read.  Because of its provocative and sensual content, apparently, the ancient Rabbis said that you had to be at least 30 years old to read it.  Although they also said it was the Holy of Holies of the Hebrew Bible.  This series was more demanding for me as a preacher than I expected.  It took  a lot of research, a good deal of planning and a whole bunch of prayer.

As I often do after a series, I’m posting here some reviews of the main commentaries and preaching resources I used in my sermon prep for this one, in case you want to go deeper.

Duane Garrett, Song of Songs/Lamentations, Word Biblical Commentary Series.    Duane Garrett’s commentary was hands down the most insightful, useful and thorough resource I’ve come across for studying this difficult but beautiful book.  He unpacks the imagery with great clarity and sensitivity, and lays out the overarching structure of the book with great skill.  It is a bit on the technical side—not an entry-level book, to be sure—and a bit of a working knowledge of Hebrew is necessary to get all you can out of this resource, but even without it, I think, there’s lots here that would be accessible to the lay reader.  If I only had one book on Song of Solomon on my shelf, it would be this one.

Richard S. Hess, Song of Songs, Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Series .  Hess’s commentary made a fine compliment to Garrett’s.  While on the one hand, it is less technical than the Word Commentary, and because of that, more accessible, it is also less thorough and satisfying as a resource for deeper research.  There were times where I felt like his readings of particular scenes or passages were only scratching the surface.  Where he was especially weak was in his efforts (or lack thereof) to describe the over-arching structure of the book.

Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament.   Although the entire third part of this massive, 800 page tome is devoted solely to the Song, Davidson’s book is not, actually, a commentary on Song of Solomon.  It is, in fact, a survey of the Old Testament’s “theology of sex,” and as such discusses every (and I do mean every) text in the OT that deals with human sexuality.   His scholarship and analysis of the data, both biblical, historical and cultural, is extensive and insightful.  It was this one, in fact, which inspired me to do a series on Song of Solomon in the first place.

There were other resources I dipped into, but those were the main three.  I’ve listed them roughly in order of usefulness, but I actually found the interaction between the three of them was the place where God really started to open up this beautiful, sensual, baffling book to me.

Oh yeah, I should also include this resource, as an honourable mention: