Solomon, Song of

The Song of Solomon (also called Canticles, after the Vulgate's Canticum Canticorum, or the Song of Songs) is the "song of songs" — the noblest and most exquisite of its kind — attributed to Solomon (1:1). It celebrates the love between a bride and bridegroom in lyric poetry of great beauty and intensity, moving through courtship, betrothal, longing, reunion, and mutual delight in language drawn from the landscape and flora of the ancient Near East. Its canonical inclusion was debated by rabbis (accepted by Rabbi Akiva as the holiest of all the writings), and it was definitively received as Scripture.

Interpretations divide between the allegorical (the beloved represents Israel, or the church, and the bridegroom represents God, or Christ) and the literal (a celebration of human romantic love within the covenant of marriage). The New Testament's use of the bridegroom-bride metaphor for Christ and the church (John 3:29; Eph. 5:25–27; Rev. 21:2) provides a theological framework within which the allegorical reading operates, even if the primary genre is erotic poetry celebrating marital love as a divine gift.