allegory

Love on God’s Terms

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The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. – Song of Solomon 1:1 ESV

This is probably one of the most hotly debated books in the Bible. The interpretations of its meaning are countless and questions regarding its purpose are endless. Some see it as an allegory that carries deeper spiritual meaning. Others read it as an actual autobiographical story featuring events from the life of Solomon himself.

There is little debate that it is a love poem. That is clear from a cursory reading of its eight short chapters. But why is it in the Bible? If all Scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, and training in righteousness, why is this book included? What is it attempting to teach us? As I read through it this morning I was struck by how many times it caused me to reflect on the love of God. It seems to reveal the kind of love God has for His people and that He longs for them to have for Him. It is the same kind of love that Christ has for His bride, the Church, and that He desires to receive in return. Finally, it is the kind of love that any husband should feel for his wife and she willingly returns to Him.

It is indeed a book about love. Whether it is about real people and real events, I can’t say. But it is about love; a faithful, eyes-for-you-only kind of love that God illustrates in His love for those He calls His own. It is the kind of love that caused Christ to take on human flesh and die a sinner’s death in our place on the cross. This kind of love is selfless and sacrificial. It is passionate and powerful. It is intimate and intense. I can’t help but read this book and be reminded of the Father’s love for me. I am blown away by how Christ expresses His love for me each and every day. God the Father and God the Son call out to me daily, longing to have a love relationship with me that is two-way, not one-way. But so often I am more than willing to accept their love but refuse to return it.

The Song of Solomon shows love that is given and received. Neither character can live without the other. There is a level of infatuation in the poem that will leave the reader a bit embarrassed. The dialogue between the two anonymous lovers are syrupy and saccharine. They almost feel a little bit over the top and uncomfortable to read – like you’re looking at someone’s private love letters. But the love expressed here is genuine and sincere. It is intimate and personal. There is a sense of infatuation and focused quality behind the love expressed in these eight chapters that reflect the way we are loved by God and how we should return that love to Him.

Yet, the book doesn’t mention the name of God a single time. His name is nowhere to be found but His presence is unmistakingly felt as one considers the deep and abiding nature of the love described on the book’s pages.

“God’s name is absent from the entire setting. But who would deny that his presence is strongly felt? From whom come such purity and passion? Whose creative touch can ignite hearts and bodies with such a capacity to bring unsullied delight to another? Who kindled the senses that savor every sight, touch, scent, taste, and sound of a loved one? Whose very character is comprised of the love that is the central subject of the Song? None of this is to allegorize either the minute details or the main sense of the book. It is about human love at its best. But behind it, above it, and through it, the Song, as part of the divinely ordered repertoire of Scripture, is a paean of praise to the Lord of creation who makes possible such exquisite love and to the Lord of redemption who demonstrated love’s fullness on a cross.” – David A. Hubbard, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon

In terms of the authorship of the book, the debate has been long and intense and continues to this day. Due to the number of times Solomon’s name is mentioned in the poem, many have concluded that he is its author. Others have ruled him out because of his well-chronicled practice of polygamy. The Book of 1 Kings details Solomon’s over-the-top love affair with the opposite sex by revealing that at one time his harem consisted of 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11:3). This unbridled predilection for the opposite sex would end up driving a wedge between Solomon and his God because it was in direct violation of the will of God. This prohibition against kings accumulating wives for themselves had been given long before Israel had a king.

The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD. – Deuteronomy 17:17 NLT

Yet, Solomon ignored God’s command, in a big way. The Book of 1 Kings elaborates on the egregious nature of Solomon’s disobedience.

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. – 1 Kings 11:1-6 ESV

Some scholars argue that Solomon could have written this poem earlier in his life, long before his penchant for accumulating wives got the better of him. According to the Book of Ecclesiastes, also attributed to Solomon, the latter years of his life were marked by an obsessive-compulsive need to hoard.

I bought male and female slaves, and had slaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I got singers, both men and women, and many concubines, the delight of the sons of man. – Ecclesiastes 2:7-8 ESV

This less-than-flattering self-disclosure has led many scholars to reject Solomon as the author of the Book of the Song Solomon. Others get around Solomon’s sexual indiscretions by assuming he wrote this epic poem earlier in life, long before old age and affluence damaged his reasoning and tarnished his reputation.

While the debate about authorship continues unabated, another unresolved conflict concerns how this book should be interpreted. Over the years, a majority of commentators and biblical scholars have argued that its content is meant to be read allegorically. Yet, there is nothing in the book’s content that suggests this is the appropriate interpretative model. It is presented as a series of love poems between Solomon and a woman who is identified as Shulamite.

Return, return, O Shulammite,
    return, return, that we may look upon you.

Why should you look upon the Shulammite,
    as upon a dance before two armies? – Song of Solomon 6:13 ESV

The term “Shulamite” is believed to be derived from the Hebrew word, shulammit, which can be translated as “woman of Jerusalem.” Once again, there has been much debate as to the exact identity of this woman, but no one can deny that she plays a significant role in the poem.

It seems best to take a literal approach when interpreting this book, treating the characters and the content as historical and not figurative. This approach does not eliminate the typological nature of the book. The two individuals whose deep love for one another is on display throughout the book are intended to illustrate something far greater than the relationship between two infatuated lovers. Over the years, scholars have speculated that the content of this book is meant to illustrate the love of Yahweh for the people of Israel. Others have determined that the two characters represent Jesus and His bride, the Church.

“The shepherd is a picture of Christ, that great Shepherd of the sheep. The Shulamite mirrors the Church or the individual believer devoted to Him. Solomon represents the prince of this world armed with all worldly pomp, power, and magnificence. The court women are those who admire him and who look askance at those who turn their backs upon the world, its system, and all that it has to offer in favor of an absent and, to them, unknown Beloved.” – John Phillips, Exploring the Song of Solomon

The one thing that is not up for debate is that this is a love story. The words exchanged between the two characters are intimate and unabashedly intense. Reading the dialogue can feel awkward and intrusive. It is like listening in on a private phone call between a husband and his wife. But the unashamed openness of the two lovers is meant to convey a degree of love and desire that borders on the obsessive. Their shockingly candid expressions of love are intended to make the reader blush but are also meant to stir up a desire to experience such unbridled desire for another.

The intimate language found in this book will be offputting to some. They will find it too strong and inappropriate for consumption. But if God divinely inspired its content, then this book is also “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy:16 ESV). May we read it with eyes wide open and our hearts prepared to hear what God has to teach about love – love between a woman and a man, and love between a God and His people.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

With God, All Things Are Possible

/ kdmiller55 / 1 Comment

17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. – Jonah 1:17 ESV

Now we come to the part of the story that catches everyone’s imagination. The very idea of a giant fish swallowing a man is both terrifying and fascinating. It catches the reader’s imagination and creates a certain sense of incredulity. Up to this point, the account of Jonah’s life has had a decidedly biographical and historical feel to it. But when the big fish enters the scene, it all takes on the character of a tall tale. Suddenly, the chronicle of Jonah’s travels reads more like a page out of Aesop’s Fables. This one aspect of the story, while not entirely impossible, seems highly improbable. That is what has led so many modern biblical scholars and commentators to classify the book of Jonah as either allegorical or parabolic. They reject the historicity of the book, characterizing it as an allegorical story that portrays Jonah as a symbol of Israel and the fish as a representation of Babylon. The rebellious Jonah is swallowed by a divinely ordained monster, just as God’s rebellious and unrepentant people will be consumed and taken captive by the Babylonians. They will spend an extended time in “the belly of the great fish” only to find themselves graciously disgorged back into the land of promise at the end of their 70-year exile.

Others have chosen to interpret the story of Jonah as simply a parable. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a parable is a “short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or a religious principle.” It is a common teaching methodology that attempts to convey deeper truths using simple, easy-to-understand stories that utilize simile and metaphor. Seen as a parable, the story of Jonah becomes a visual illustration that decries the danger of narrow-minded nationalism or promotes the universal love of God. Everything in the story takes on a comparative quality, requiring the reader to determine the symbolism behind each actor and action.

But for centuries, most Jewish and Christian scholars used the historical interpretive model when approaching the book of Jonah. They viewed Jonah as a real person and the contents of the book bearing his name as a record of actual events. They viewed the fantastic and somewhat fanciful scenes described in the story through their understanding of God’s omnipotence and the clear record of God’s inexplicable actions as found in the rest of the Scriptures. The likelihood of God causing a great fish to swallow Jonah is no less plausible than His dividing of the waters of the Red Sea so that the people of Israel could cross over on dry ground. In their minds, Yahweh was the God of the impossible. It was Jeremiah the prophet who wrote, “Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17 ESV). And God would respond to the prophet with a rhetorical question: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27 ESV). Jesus Himself said of His Heavenly Father, “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 ESV).

To claim the historicity of the book of Jonah is not to say that it contains no allegorical elements or parabolic lessons. It clearly does. But to deny that the book has any credible historical value seems to contradict the view that Jesus held. Over in the gospel of Matthew, there is a record of Jesus’ encounter with some scribes and Pharisees who had demanded that He perform a sign. These skeptical Jewish religious leaders were attempting to set Jesus up. They were hoping they could entice Him to perform a miracle that would violate their laws against doing work on the Sabbath. But Jesus refused to take the bait. Instead, He recounted the story of Jonah in the belly of the great fish.

“An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” – Matthew 12:39-41 ESV

Jesus did not treat the story of Jonah as some allegorical tale or a parable with a moral lesson. He described Jonah as spending three days and nights in the belly of the fish. And this historical event was meant to foreshadow His own pending death and burial. These men would have been intimately familiar with the story of Jonah. Jesus doesn’t mention Jonah’s release from his aquatic confinement, but they knew that the “resurrected” Jonah eventually made it to Nineveh and declared the word of the Lord. And the result was the redemption of the city’s pagan inhabitants. Yes, Jonah was intended to be a sign of something greater to come, but that does not eliminate the fact that the events of his life actually happened. And Jesus will revisit the story of Jonah’s life again. As Jesus’ popularity increased so did the size of the crowds who followed Him. But He knew that many of the Jewish people were attracted to Him for the wrong reasons. They were intrigued by His miracles and wished to see Him do more. This led Him to compare them to the people of Nineveh.

“This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation.…The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” – Luke 11:29, 31 ESV

In this case, Jesus doesn’t mention Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the fish. Instead, He declares that Jonah himself was “a sign” to the people of Nineveh. After his “resurrection” from the dead, Jonah appeared in Nineveh preaching a message of pending judgment.

“Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” – Jonah 3:4 ESV

But this message of doom was accompanied by a call to repentance because the text goes on to say, “the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them” ( Jonah 3:5 ESV). And Jesus goes on to commend the wicked people of Nineveh for heeding the words of Jonah and experiencing the salvation of God. Then He declares boldly declares Himself to be greater than Jonah. He had come preaching a message of repentance but the people of Israel were refusing to respond and believe. They wanted to see signs, but were rejecting the “sign of Jonah” – the call to repent.

On yet another occasion, a contingent of Sadducees and Pharisees came to Jesus demanding that He perform a “sign from heaven” (Matthew 16:1 ESV). They were looking for verifiable proof that He was the Son of God. They refused to believe that He was the Messiah and viewed all His previous miracles as nothing more than the works of Satan. But, once again, Jesus refused to give in to their demands. Instead, he exposed their inability to see “the signs of the times” (Matthew 16:3 ESV). They could successfully predict the weather by looking at the sky but were blind to the many visible proofs of Jesus’ identity and mission. So, He told them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16:4 ESV).

These religious leaders were experts in the Hebrew Scriptures and would have been very familiar with the story of Jonah. They would have believed in the historicity of Jonah’s encounter with the fish and his ultimate rescue by the hand of God. The story of the prophet’s venture into the Assyrian capital and the repentance of its wicked inhabitants would have been familiar to them. But Jesus wants them to know that the only sign they are going to receive will be His own death and resurrection. And even that miraculous sign will refuse to convince them. Despite the incredible nature of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, the majority of the Jewish people will remain “an evil and adulterous generation.”

As the apostle John wrote in his gospel account, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11 ESV). The light of God penetrated the darkness of the world, but “people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19 ESV).

Jonah was a Hebrew prophet who had ministered to the king of Israel (2 Kings 14:25). Yet God had commissioned him to go to a pagan city full of wicked idolaters. But Jonah chose to disobey God’s orders by seeking passage on a ship headed in the opposite direction. In his attempt to escape God’s call, he soon found himself surrounded by pagan sailors in the midst of a life-threatening storm. And his stubborn refusal to obey the word of Yahweh resulted in him being thrown overboard and swallowed by a giant fish.

Preposterous? Possibly. Difficult to believe? Most certainly. But the story’s believability does not invalidate its credibility. Everything about this story is meant to be beyond the scope of human reason. Why would God send His prophet to a nation that was marked by wickedness and evil beyond description? Why would He threaten the lives of the men on board the ship, by hurling “a great wind upon the sea” (Jonah 1:4 ESV)? What was the purpose behind the sailors casting lots and Jonah being exposed as the guilty party? And what are we to do with the unbelievable statement that “the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah” (Jonah 1:17 ESV)?

Simply put, we are to believe. The story of Jonah is real and it points to the even greater and more implausible story of God sending His Son into a world darkened by sin so that He might be the light to the nations. And the apostle John succinctly summarizes the incredible story of Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection.

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. – John 1:9-13 ESV

Jonah was swallowed by the fish. Jesus was swallowed by the grave. But both were resurrected by the sovereign will of God the Father and went on to declare the gracious plan of redemption to all those who would believe.

English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Permanent Text Edition® (2016). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The Message (MSG)Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson