Song of Solomon

About Song of Solomon

The Song of Songs is a collection of love poetry — two voices delighting in each other with honesty, longing, and joy. It celebrates romantic love and marriage as God's good gift, and many readers through the centuries have also heard in it a picture of God's love for His people. In the Bible's big story, it hands beauty and desire back to their Maker.

Written by

The opening line links the Song to Solomon, though the Hebrew phrase can also mean it was written for or about him, so the author question stays open.

When

Tradition places it in Solomon's reign around 950 BC; some scholars date its final form centuries later based on its language, and the evidence allows either view.

Themes

• Love as God's good gift
• Longing and belonging
• Faithfulness and delight
• Love strong as death

Key verses

• Song of Solomon 2:16¶ My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.
• Song of Solomon 8:6-7¶ Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.