What is Song of Solomon about? Song of Solomon is a book that’s not often preached through, but it’s a book about love and desire.
Have you ever been madly in love, or known someone who has been madly in love? Love makes you do crazy things. It makes you behave in ways that may seem strange to those around you. When you are in love, you want to go to great lengths to describe and display your love. I know it may be hard for some of you who have been married ten, twenty, thirty-plus years to remember the young love you once had, but this is what Song of Solomon is describing.
I remember when my wife and I were dating and I was ready to propose. I was extravagant in my love. We were down in college at Texas A&M, and they have the George H.W. Bush Library with a big lawn around it and a pond, a lovely setting. I had her friends “kidnap” her and surprise her by taking her to the library. I had gone to Hobby Lobby and bought about two hundred candles, along with the glassware that goes with the candles. I set up four stations along the path. Each station had a letter from me, and each station had a Bible open to a passage. The idea was that she would walk down the path and encounter these stations, and eventually she would reach the gazebo by the pond, which was illuminated with candles, and I would be there with a ring to propose. And she said yes, which is great. But this is the kind of extravagance you typically get into when you’re madly in love.
Getting Our Bearings
Song of Solomon is really unique. Some books of the Bible you may read, like Matthew or Mark, and you can readily understand what’s happening. You can understand that Jesus is the central figure, what he came to do, what he’s saying. It’s very applicable. Other books, like Romans or Corinthians, you can understand as well. It says it’s written to a church. They have particular problems in the church. Paul or whoever else is writing is trying to address those problems in the church. Understanding the type of book you’re in can help you understand the meaning in that book.
The Song of Solomon is unique. Bernard of Clairvaux preached eighty-six sermons just through the opening chapters. This book has always been considered Holy Scripture, the inspired and inerrant word of God. John Owen used it prolifically in his ministry when he was preaching and teaching, specifically when talking about communion with God.
The Song of Solomon is understood to be written by Solomon in around the tenth century BC. Solomon was the son of David. He came after David. He was authorized to build the temple. Solomon also wrote the Proverbs. So this is a man who was very wise, very powerful, very rich. He was also a man who was compromised. He was compromised by sexual sin. He had many wives and concubines, which makes this love poem, and that’s what it is, a love poem, very curious. Some speculate that Song of Solomon was written after he had turned away from his sexual promiscuity and turned to one wife.
At the base level, Song of Solomon is a love poem. It’s called, in verse 1, the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. The Song of Songs, meaning the greatest of love poems. Think of how we say “King of Kings” or “Holy of Holies.” It’s to emphasize the height, the pinnacle of songs. And it’s unique in the Bible because there aren’t many passages in our Bibles that speak to love between a man and a woman like this book. There are not a lot of references to God or eternal matters in the Song of Solomon.
Throughout Song of Solomon, you read a back and forth between a man and a woman. It’s a love poem. Think of Johnny Cash and June Carter singing “Jackson.” Or if you have a more refined palate, think of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. This is the kind of literature we’re encountering.
There are others mentioned in the passage. You’re going to see little headings that say she, he, and others. Who are the others? This is not a reference to the show Lost and the Others. This is a reference to a group of bridesmaids, a group of virgins who are celebrating, who are reflecting, who are joining in the chorus, who are celebrating what they’re doing.
Sometimes it’s helpful to understand the general flow of poems. For example, when I first read the Odyssey in high school, I was incredibly bored. I did not understand what was going on. Until I understood the flow of the narrative in the poem, I didn’t really grasp the concepts in it. So I want to help you a little with Song of Solomon. It’s not long, only eight chapters, but it’s pretty difficult to track if you’re just coming at it cold.
The general flow of Song of Solomon goes like this. The first few chapters are leading up to a wedding day. It’s young love, anticipatory love, leading up to a wedding day. The middle chapters, three and four, somewhere around there, are the actual wedding day and the consummation of the wedding. Then the later chapters talk about a more refined love. There’s actually talk of distance, disconnection, how to find love again, all that kind of thing in the book.
As we study this book, we’re going to talk about the nature of love, how it comes about, what it looks like. We’re going to talk about intimacy and sex. We’re going to talk about love that lasts in marriage. We’re going to talk about dating, finding a wife or a husband, how to have a lasting marriage. In that way, there’s something for everyone in this book. There’s something for everyone in this book, because these are matters that are deeply contested today. And what we see in God’s word is that love and intimacy and marriage were designed by God and are very good.
Two Approaches
Regarding interpreting the Song of Solomon, there are two camps.
One camp looks at the Song of Solomon and completely ignores the physical intimacy, the marriage, the interplay in the poem between the man and the woman. They jump straight to: this is a reflection of Christ and the church. We’re just going to talk about Christ and the church and how we are the woman in this case, Christ is the man, and this is the kind of love we should have for Christ. Not wrong. I think it’s a little incomplete.
The other camp, which is what you’ll get today if you ever hear it preached, treats it as totally separate from Christ and the church. It literally just turns into a series on dating and marriage.
I want to strike a balance between both. I believe both can be helpful and profitable. I believe that’s often how God’s word works. And both have dangers and benefits.
If we take just the Christological approach, the Christ and the church approach, you’re going to miss real implications about your relationship in marriage, or about finding a spouse, and real practical advice on marriage and sexuality. And if we just focus on the dating advice, the sermon series on dating and marriage and all that kind of thing, we’re going to miss the broader implications of Christ.
The book will challenge those of us who have grown cold in our love for Christ. It will challenge us to rekindle that intimacy with Christ, because many times after years of following Christ, the zeal for the Lord that you had early on can dissipate. And for those of us who may be a bit squeamish and prudish about talking about these things, either with others or from a pulpit such as sex and marriage and intimacy this will challenge us to understand God’s design for these things.
When we encounter a love poem in the Bible, any kind of poetry, preaching through it is actually not as fun. Think of it this way. If someone tells a joke, and then has to explain the joke, that’s a sure sign the joke failed, right? Or if we went out and admired the sunset and remarked, “Look at the beautiful sunset over the Flatirons,” and then one of us said, “Well, actually, let me break down how the sunset works and why you see colors…” We’d say, “Dude, shut up. Stop. Let’s just enjoy the sunset.”
That’s often what it’s like coming to a poetry book and breaking it down bit by bit. But there are lots of illustrations in this text that when you first read them, you think, I don’t know what’s going on. I want to help you understand them.
Song of Solomon 1:1–7 — The Bride’s Desire
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.
I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!
Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?
In this first section we encounter the bride-to-be and her desire for her soon-to-be husband, for the groom. She illustrates the love she has for this man; that it is better than wine, that it is like oil poured out.
What is she saying here? How is it better than wine? Well, what does wine do? Wine is a delight to drink. It is sweet upon the lips and it can make you intoxicated. This is often what love does. This is why some people call it love drunk. Surely you have a friend who, when they fell in love, started behaving in strange ways. All of a sudden their interests change and they want to do things they never wanted to do before.
One of my best friends in college started dating a girl who is now his wife. He and I grew up in high school together. We went hunting and fishing and backpacking and camping together. We played sports together. And all of a sudden he meets this girl, and all of a sudden he’s interested in cooking. I said, “We don’t cook. What are you talking about?” And then he said, “I’m interested in poetry and Shakespeare.” And I said, “Dude. Shakespeare. This is not us.” And he said, “I like cats and I want to read Harry Potter.” And I said, “Who are you? Who has taken my best friend, and what has happened to him?” It’s very odd behavior, but this is often what love does, does it not? You’ve probably seen it in your own life.
Then what does she do? She highlights his name. It’s like oil poured out. What is she saying here? That his very name is arousing to her in particular ways, and that his name is also one of respect in her eyes. His name is not just another name of another guy to her. When she hears his name, she gets butterflies in her stomach. Maybe some of you are still in that season of your relationship. Maybe some of you are older and can recall a point in your relationship where the sound of your spouse’s name did this. His name is not just another name. It carries weight with her. He is a man of respect. She admires him. He has a reputation.
She expresses her desire to go into his chambers, to be held by him. Of course, what’s implied here is more than cuddling. She wants to be with her man. She wants intimacy with him. Her powerful desire is for him to sweep her off her feet. As is noted in the text, draw me after you; let us run. She’s saying, take me away.
This is, of course, contrary to many feminist dating ideals where the idea is that the man and woman are interchangeable. Instead, she longs for him to provide leadership, and she is honest about what she wants. This is not a passive woman who is afraid to express herself. She’s happy to express herself and what she desires. She wants the relationship to be honored among others.
We see at the end of verse 4 that the chorus of women, the bridesmaids, chime in. They also admire the man, the groom. They are glad to see their friend in love and celebrate her love with her. In short, they support her desire.
The poem turns at this point, in verse 5. She begins talking about herself, and we actually learn more about this bride, this woman. Who is she? What kind of woman is writing these words, expressing these thoughts, having these desires?
She is one who has worked in the fields. She says she had to work in the vineyards because of her brothers. And notice, she doesn’t even name them as brothers. What does she call them? My mother’s sons. It’s like when my wife looks at me and says, “your daughter.” There’s disconnection, frustration she has with her family.
She had to work the vineyards. It says she is very dark but lovely. In their culture, in their day, to have dark skin was seen as a negative because it reflected lower social status, because you worked in the fields. This, of course, is different in our day, where everybody wants to be tan. But in that day this was the common understanding. This is still true in places like Korea, where people desire to have lighter skin. She has worked in the fields and has not been able to tend to herself. She is not one who is pampered, who comes from high social status. She has been neglected. She has not had time to tend her own vineyard, is the way she puts it.
So this is a woman presumably from a lower social and economic status than the groom. This is typically how it works in dating and marriage. If you did not know, this is discernible. We all know this. Women desire a man who is higher up than she is, whether it be in reputation, intellect, wealth, or class. If you don’t believe me, consider why my brothers in Christ who are “short kings” have such a hard time finding a date. Because women are attracted to men who are taller than they are.
This is not to say those of you who are shorter in stature cannot find a wife. There are many ways to increase your status. But this text is simply reflecting reality: that women are typically attracted to men who, in money, strength, intellect, whatever it may be, are higher up than they are. Women are not looking for nice guys. They are looking for guys who take risks, who are adventurous, who have novel ideas, men of capability, who are daring and courageous. These are the type of men that women are attracted to.
What we see in this text is a woman who is madly in love. She desires to be with him. She wants to know where to meet him. What is she asking in the text? She’s asking where he pastures his flock. She’s saying, where can we rendezvous? Where can we connect? How can we get away together? She says, if I go out at noon, I’m going to have to veil my face. I’m not going to be able to find you. I want to just get away with you in secret.
The bride wants the groom to lead. This speaks to wives and women more generally too. A good wife is ready for her husband to lead. This is what many wives want to experience. They want to be led. The challenge many wives experience today is that they want to be led, but only in the way they feel like being led, when they’re in the mood to be led.
There’s a funny clip that goes around sometimes from the show The Office, where Ryan, the intern, is coming back into the office. He’s really done some heinous things prior, and now he’s been rehired, and he says, “Look, I know I need leadership. I made a lot of mistakes, and I know I need leadership. I want to be led, but only in the way I want to be led, when I’m in the mood to be led.”
This is sometimes, unfortunately, how many women and wives think today. And really, what you’re saying when you say, “I want to be led, but only in the way I want to be led, when I’m in the mood to be led,” is that you basically want to be agreed with. You don’t want to be led. This is a challenge for wives, for Christian women today. This is not actually leadership.
The bride in the Song is very clear. Open-ended: tell me where to go. Tell me where to meet you. Please lead me. Sweep me off my feet, is what she’s saying.
So far, what we’ve heard is the woman expressing her desire, how she’s over the moon about this man. You have to remember, even though we’ve already given away a lot of the story, to put yourself in the poem. We don’t know what’s about to happen. How is he going to respond to this woman? Is he going to respond positively and receive this? Or is he going to reject her?
Song of Solomon 1:8–14 — The Groom Responds
If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.
I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots. Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.
We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.
While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.
How does the man respond? Does he reject her? No. He responds to her with teasing and invitation. He says, you know where to find me. He’s going to be among his flock. This is casual flirting, if you didn’t know. She’s said, where are you going to be? And he says, you know where I’m going to be. This is how relationships work. He calls her the most beautiful among women.
How does he describe her? First he compares her to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots. What does this mean? Because if you were to call your wife a horse, I’m fairly confident she would not receive it as a compliment. What are we talking about here?
There are two ways to understand this analogy. One is that the mares and horses of Pharaoh’s army would have been very ornamental. They would have had embroidery and decor and jewels as they went out to battle. The other way to understand the analogy is that for a mare to be among Pharaoh’s chariots — the chariots were typically pulled by stallions — to put a mare among them would cause a lot of attention to be on the mare, you might say. So he’s saying, look, when you walk in a room, everybody notices. Everybody sees you. That’s how beautiful you are. People pay attention to you.
What else does he say? He goes on to compliment her body, her cheeks and neck, in the same line of compliment that was common in that day. Today, thinking of these things, it would be like complimenting a woman’s cheeks, her dimples, rosy cheeks, freckles, whatever it might be that you would notice about her appearance.
Now notice what we’ve already seen throughout these first few verses. There are two things going on. We have the woman’s admiration and desire of the man, and that is rooted in his name, his reputation, and the respect he has in the community. Her love is born out of admiration and respect. She will remark upon his physical features later, even on in this passage. But generally speaking, this is how the woman is in love with the man.
And what does the man do? He does what all men do. He remarks upon her physical features. He is most attracted to her in her physical appearance. And this comes right after she’s expressing insecurity and doubt about her own physical appearance. He assures her and compliments her and overwhelms her with these illustrations that may seem strange to us in our day, but we can all relate to it. He’s talking about how beautiful she is physically. This is how attraction and desire typically work among men and women. You can even find this in the New Testament, where wives are called to respect their husbands and husbands are called to love their wives.
What do the others call out? The bridesmaids call out that they will provide ornaments and silver. They’re surrounded by bridesmaids who are celebrating this union, excited about it. They’re willing to give and contribute to the wedding. They want to decorate it and make it beautiful.
The bride responds by making a note of how precious he is to her. She says that her nard gave forth its fragrance while he was on his couch. This is figurative, saying that she was aroused by her groom on his couch, just by the sight of him.
And notice she calls him king. Ladies, take note. This is a wonderful thing to call your husband: king. I highly commend this to you. Try it out sometime. Unlike the horse illustration, please do not try that, women, try this.
She uses two illustrations. What does she say? She says his scent is desirous to her. He is like a sachet of myrrh or a cluster of henna blossoms. This would have been a flower with a fragrance. So his fragrance, whether it is some kind of perfume or cologne that he has on, or his very pheromones, is precious to her. It’s precious to her, because she’s describing things like myrrh and henna blossoms that are precious to people. These are things people treasure. And she expresses that she desires closeness and physical intimacy with him.
Now, what do they look forward to?
Song of Solomon 1:15–17 — The Wedding Ahead
Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.
Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar; our rafters are pine.
Once again he admires her beauty twofold. He says she has beautiful eyes. He says the eyes of a dove. What’s going on here? Again, the figurative speech is lost on us.
He’s saying that her eyes bring him peace. The dove is often biblically associated with peace. Just her eyes can bring him a lack of anxiety, a confidence about him. By gazing upon her and seeing her eyes, he feels at home. He feels at peace. Because the eyes are like a window to the soul. The eyes say a lot about a person.
Some suggest even that in your marriage, if you were to just stare into the eyes of your spouse for a few minutes a day, it could increase, and does increase, connection and intimacy and love. I would highly recommend this before trying any kind of couples therapy. Call it a staring contest once a day. Mom and Dad have a staring contest once a day and you can increase your connection with one another.
Then she admires his beauty. His beauty delights her, and she highlights the beauty of the setting. She says, our couch is green. This seems like a very odd remark. What’s going on again? The couch being green may strike us as strange, but you have to understand that green was the color of luxury and fertility. Their context is a desert context, so you would have rivers and springs and oases, and green was always associated with where life was. Green is always associated with fertility in that context. So she’s saying, look, we want to reproduce together. This is what she’s saying on the couch.
It may strike us as strange, like I said, but when she’s making these remarks, there’s deep meaning going on. It’s the color of luxury. And she’s saying that she desires to honor God’s word, because God designed sex for reproduction and pleasure. That’s a tension we want to honor in the Bible and in this text, because there’s going to be a lot of talk of pleasure, but also of reproduction. And that is a fundamental purpose that God made sex for in the context of marriage.
And what does she do? She describes a house or structure where they will be together, with beams of cedar, with rafters of pine. What are we talking about? Are we talking about a cabin in the woods in the mountains of Colorado? No. She’s describing a luxurious setting in those days.
When you’re in love, you typically want to get away with your husband or wife and spend time in places that are beautiful together. You want to go see places that are magnificent because you’re in love and it honors the love that you share. We see this today when couples take a honeymoon trip. They typically save up and go somewhere to celebrate their love.
What Are We Seeing?
What do we see in this text from God’s word? What is God communicating to us?
Everything about this passage sets up the rest of the book. We have a man of respect and admiration. We have a woman of beauty. And they desire intimacy with one another. They’re surrounded by a chorus of others who celebrate their love.
If it helps, think of this chapter, and into the next, as a rehearsal dinner. Before the wedding, everybody gets together, there are speeches, there are toasts, there might be drinking and dancing (unless you’re a very serious Baptist, which I guess I am not). But there’s a lot of fun, and there’s celebrating.
They are over the moon with one another, drunk on love, looking forward to being together. This is young love, a love that has not matured yet, but is looking forward to being together, to committing to one another.
Conclusion
We see things in this text that are true for every godly marriage. The wife wants the husband to lead. The husband leads. There is flirting. There is admiration. They express their love and illustrate it. Women are looking for men of stature, men of respect. Men are looking for women who are beautiful and who admire them.
We see that this approach to sex and marriage, one which desires intimacy in the design of marriage between a man and woman. is very different from how our world conceives of marriage and love today, where our world uses flippant, undefined slogans like “love is love,” which means nothing and everything all at the same time.
Biblically, and even from creation, we see that marriage is a holy union. This union between a man and a woman, where the two will become one flesh, is fundamental to the fabric of creation. To try to tamper with it and suggest that two men or two women can become one flesh is ludicrous. It’s ludicrous. It’s rebellion against reality itself.
And in our day, a husband and a wife who love one another and are loyal to one another and seek to continue to cultivate and grow their love, that is one of the most radical things you can see, especially in our context. And this kind of love testifies to the beauty of the gospel itself.
We see this in Ephesians. Paul remarks in Ephesians about how marriage is not just marriage for loving one another, for having children, for building a home. It actually points to something greater. It’s a signpost to Christ and the church. It reflects a greater soteriological, or salvation, matter of Christ and the church.
Too often as Christians we focus a lot on the prohibitions of sex and marriage i.e. what you can’t do. And that’s good and well. We need to really focus on that, especially in such a promiscuous culture today. But oftentimes when you’re talking with a young couple in love, they’re asking, “How far can we go together? How far can we go?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is, “how do I honor God during this season?” We want to focus on God.
We don’t just want to put roadblocks and rules and wisdom in front of people as far as what not to do. We want to celebrate what they should do. And that’s what we’re seeing in this text. That is a beautiful picture of what we should do. Instead of being prudish, we can hear from God’s word what God has to say to us about his design for sex, and how it works, and how it honors him in marriage.
Christ and the Church
We can also see the broader implications in this passage for Christ and the church. We don’t want to stretch the analogy too far. We don’t want to make a jump where it’s unrecognizable.
I read a funny illustration this week about this, speaking about the Song of Solomon and how people want to jump to Jesus very quickly. One time a Sunday school teacher sensed that her gaggle of children was becoming bored with the lesson, and that the lessons were becoming too predictable for the children. So one day she asked the class, “What’s gray, furry, and lives in a eucalyptus tree?” No one answered. She asked again, and still none of the children answered. So she turned to the pastor’s daughter and said, “Surely, Susan, you know the answer.” And Susan replied, “Miss, I know the answer must be Jesus, but it sure sounds like a koala to me.”
What is the point? The point is that sometimes it’s just a koala, not a picture of Jesus. So we want to be careful here. We want to be prudent here. We want to submit to God’s word. But as I mentioned, we see in Ephesians and many other places in the Bible that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church. So it is totally permissible to talk about these things.
What, then, can we see in this passage?
In this book, the church is the bride. We are the darkened ones. We are the ones who have been put out. We are stained by sin. We are ashamed of our sin, and we desire for Christ to lead us. We admire Christ and call him, rightfully, king. We ask where he is. We seek his face. We go to him. We want to be with Christ. We long to be with him. We long for deeper intimacy with Christ.
And we want to be careful here lest we misunderstand. What is in view in this text is heightened love and desire, anticipating marriage, intimacy, and sex within God’s creational design of husband and wife. And this desire and fulfillment is what we look forward to at Christ’s return.
Our day is one in which sexual pleasure, and pleasure in general, is perceived to be the culmination of self-expression. Anyone who would say you can’t express yourself in that way is seen as a tyrant or a hater or whatever it may be. What we see in this text is that God’s design is very good and very satisfying. But we’re also not deceived by the world into thinking that sexual pleasure is the end-all be-all of our life. The eternal destination of our life is to be with Christ in glory. So we can enjoy God’s good gift without diminishing our eternal destination.
It may seem odd to you to talk about sex and intimacy in relation to Christ and the church, but sex is one of the most fundamental gifts God has given to us. And this fundamental gift is not just productive, but pleasurable. And that’s what we have in view here.
We desire to be satisfied in Christ. To rest in him. We typically refer to it as union with Christ. We’re brought into relationship with Christ, similar to how the man and the wife become one flesh. Similar, not the same. We are unified as the church with Christ. We are his bride. We are adorned for our husband.
It always cracks me up when people talk about Christ, our Lord and Savior, and they say, “Well, Jesus was single.” And I say, “Jesus is currently betrothed. He has a bride. It is the church.” And that is what we look forward to: being with Christ eternally.
And what does Christ do in this situation? He leads the church. He responds to the bride. He tells his church where to go. And he builds her up when she is downcast.
This is what we’re going to see throughout the book: both the goodness of marriage and sex, how it’s a good gift created by God, and how that good gift points to deeper realities about Christ’s salvation.
For those who have lost the zeal for the Lord that you once had, maybe in college you were part of a ministry and you felt on fire for Jesus, or you can remember your conversion story and how you wanted to tell everyone about Jesus, and maybe you’ve lost that over time, this book is a reminder of what that intimacy looks like, and how to have mature intimacy with Christ.
And for those of us who are looking to date, or get married, or are married, or have been married for a while, this is an instructive book to help us grow in wisdom and love in our marriages. God calls to us. He invites us to be with Him. Turn to Christ today.
This sermon was preached at The Well Church in Boulder, CO on August 30, 2026. To listen to this sermon go here. To watch this sermon go here.