Judaism The Song was accepted into the Jewish canon of scripture and was understood as "an allegory for the love between God and Israel", a view "dominant for a thousand years and more". However, according to Catholic priest Fr. Andrew Greeley, Song of Songs is "secular love poetry, a collection of love songs gathered around a single theme" and scholarship has "routed the allegorical interpretation". Although "there is a tradition that even this book was considered as one to be excluded", as stated in
Aboth d'Rabbi Nathan A1, a 700–900 CE work, the Song of Songs was not only included but regarded as "especially meritorious". Reformed Jewish Solomon Freehof notes that one must think "if the book is so gross ... unlike all other books of the Bible tradition[...] why accept it at all?" Canonicity was tied to its attribution to Solomon, and based on an allegorical reading where the subject matter was taken to be not sexual desire but God's love for Israel. For instance, the famed first and second century
Rabbi Akiva forbade the use of the Song of Songs in popular celebrations. He reportedly said, "He who sings the Song of Songs in wine taverns, treating it as if it were a vulgar song, forfeits his share in the world to come". However, Rabbi Akiva famously defended the canonicity of the Song of Songs, reportedly saying when the question came up of whether it should be considered a defiling work, "God forbid![...] For 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." Other rabbinic scholars who have employed allegorical exegesis in explaining the meaning of Song of Songs are
Tobiah ben Eliezer, author of , and
Zechariah ha-Rofé, author of . The French rabbi
Rashi did not believe the Song of Songs to be an erotic poem. Song of Songs is one of the overtly mystical Biblical texts for the
Kabbalah, which gave an esoteric interpretation on all the Hebrew Bible. Following the dissemination of the
Zohar in the 13th century, Jewish mysticism took on a metaphorically anthropomorphic erotic element, and Song of Songs is an example of this. In Zoharic Kabbalah, God is represented by a system of ten
sephirot emanations, each symbolizing a different attribute of God, comprising both male and female. The
Shechina (
indwelling Divine presence) was identified with the feminine sephira
Malchut, the vessel of Kingship. This symbolizes the Jewish people, and in the body, the female form, identified with the woman in Song of Songs. Her beloved was identified with the male sephira
Tiferet, the "Holy One Blessed be He", a central principle in the beneficent heavenly
flow of divine emotion. In the body, this represents the male torso, uniting through the sephira
Yesod of the male
sign of the covenant organ of procreation. Through beneficent deeds and
Jewish observance, the Jewish people restore cosmic harmony in the divine realm, healing the exile of the Shechina with God's transcendence, revealing the essential unity of God. This elevation of the world is aroused from above on the Sabbath, a foretaste of the redeemed purpose of Creation. The text thus became a description, depending on the aspect, of the creation of the world, the passage of , the covenant with Israel, and the coming of the Messianic age. "
Lecha Dodi", a 16th-century liturgical song with strong Kabbalistic symbolism, contains many passages, including its opening two words, taken directly from Song of Songs. In modern Judaism, certain verses from the Song are read on
Shabbat eve or at
Passover, which marks the beginning of the grain harvest as well as commemorating
the Exodus from Egypt, to symbolize the love between the Jewish people and their God. Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel. The entire Song of Songs in its original Hebrew is read in synagogues during the intermediate days of Passover. It is often read from a scroll similar to a
Torah scroll in style. It is also read in its entirety by some at the end of the Passover
Seder and is usually printed in most
Hagadahs. Some Jews have the custom to recite the entire book prior to the onset of the Jewish Sabbath.
Christianity (1864) The literal subject of the Song of Songs is love and sexual longing between a man and a woman, and it has little (or nothing) to say about the relationship of God and man; in order to find such a meaning it was necessary to turn to allegory, treating the love that the Song celebrates as an analogy for the love between God and Church. The Christian church's interpretation of the Song as evidence of God's love for his people, both collectively and individually, began with
Origen. Saint
Gregory of Nyssa wrote fifteen
Homilies on the Song of Songs, which are considered the pinnacle of his
biblical exegesis. In them, he compares the bride to the soul and the invisible groom to God: the finite soul is incessantly reaching out towards the infinite God and remains continually disappointed in this life due to the failure to achieve
ecstatic union with the beloved, a vision which enraptures and can be achieved fully and perfectly only in life after death. Similarly, following the
allegoric interpretation of
Ambrose of Milan, Saint
Augustine of Hippo stated that the Song of Songs represents the wedding between Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, pure and virgin, within an
ascetic context. However, going against the prevailing opinion,
Theodore of Mopsuestia, influenced by the
School of Antioch, interpreted the Song of Songs literally, understanding it as an erotic poem written by Solomon to the daughter of Pharaoh. Since the allegorical view was so predominant, his interpretation was condemned at the
Second Council of Constantinople; as a result, his writings on this book were lost, and only his literalist position is known, which would later (from the 18th century onwards) become predominant among biblical scholars. Over the centuries the emphases of interpretation shifted, first reading the Song as a depiction of the love between Christ and Church, the 11th century adding a moral element, and the 12th century understanding of the Bride as the
Virgin Mary, with each new reading absorbing rather than simply replacing earlier ones, so that the commentary became ever more complex. These theological themes are not found explicitly in the poem, but they come from a theological reading. Nevertheless, what is notable about this approach is the way it leads to conclusions not found in the overtly theological books of the
Bible. Those books reveal an abiding imbalance in the relationship between God and man, ranging from slight to enormous; but reading Songs as a theological metaphor produces quite a different outcome, one in which the two partners are equals, bound in a committed relationship. In modern times the poem has attracted the attention of feminist biblical critics, with
Phyllis Trible's foundational "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation" treating it as an exemplary text, and the Feminist Companion to the Bible series edited by
Athalya Brenner and
Carole Fontaine devoting two volumes to it.
Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints includes the book in its
standard works, but
Joseph Smith called it "not inspired" in his
Bible translation.
Islam Ibn Hazm writes that Song of Songs should be called "Folly of Follies, for it is a silly discourse which makes no sense, and no one among [the Jews] knows its meaning". Several Islamic
apologists contend that the word in Song of Songs 5:16 mentions
Muhammad. Although the verse literally means "His mouth is most sweet, he is altogether lovely", Harris Zafar argues that the suffix in the word for "lovely" (), which is occasionally used to indicate intensity, and is normally understood to do so in both
maḥămaddîm, "most lovely", and
mamtaqim, "most sweet", expresses respect and greatness, as it does in ; the word would then be translated "Muhammad", for the translation "His mouth is most sweet; he is Muhammad". == Musical settings ==