(Click here to read the whole Sex in Song of Solomon series.)
On to chapter 3! As background: The book is commonly understood as a celebration of marital/sexual love and it contains a lot of rather graphic imagery. It’s an especially important book because it’s very sex-positive and provides a powerful illustration of the joy God takes in the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife.
Chapter 3 opens with a dream sequence: the Beloved searching and longing for her Lover. Who hasn’t had a dream like that? She eventually finds him in her dream, and she awakens somewhat flustered. This the dream of the Bride on the night before her wedding.
On my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not.
I will rise now and go about the city,
in the streets and in the squares;
I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but found him not.
The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city.
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
Scarcely had I passed them
when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go
until I had brought him into my mother’s house,
and into the chamber of her who conceived me.
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or the does of the field,
that you not stir up or awaken love
until it pleases.
In her dream, the Beloved catches her Lover and drags him to bed. The imagery of bringing him “into the chamber of her who conceived me” highlights the special intimacy of sex within marriage: this isn’t just sex, it’s loving sex that could lead to pregnancy. What could be more erotic?
When the Beloved awakens, she sees her Groom arriving for their wedding. Just as in earlier chapters the Lover admired his Beloved’s feminine attributes, here the Beloved is entranced by the Lover’s masculine wealth and power.
What is that coming up from the wilderness
like columns of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
with all the fragrant powders of a merchant?
Behold, it is the litter of Solomon!
Around it are sixty mighty men,
some of the mighty men of Israel,
all of them wearing swords
and expert in war,
each with his sword at his thigh,
against terror by night.
King Solomon made himself a carriage
from the wood of Lebanon.
He made its posts of silver,
its back of gold, its seat of purple;
its interior was inlaid with love
by the daughters of Jerusalem.
Go out, O daughters of Zion,
and look upon King Solomon,
with the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
on the day of the gladness of his heart.
Chapter 3 may not contain as many sexual metaphors as chapters 1 and 2, but I find the marital intimacy to be especially erotic. Trying to get pregnant is some of the best sex ever.
