Deeper Commentary
Song of Solomon 8:1
Oh that you were like my brother, who nursed from the breasts of my
mother! If I found you outside, I would kiss you; yes, and no one would
despise me-
"Outside" begs the question 'outside where?'. The reference
fits most comfortably to the idea of the house of the women, from which
she occasionally slipped out for secret meetings and sex with Solomon.
She deeply wished that Solomon was her brother, i.e. an Egyptian, because in that case their relationship could be much more open, they would not be despised because of their love, and Solomon could come and live in her mother's house back in Egypt (:1,2). The courtship was held in lonely, secluded places, with the fear of being seen and mocked (Song 5:6; 8:1,14; 7:11,12). Clearly she was attracted to Solomon rather than to the God of Israel. Solomon describes her in terms of the geographical features of Israel, he wished her to be as one of the founding mothers of Israel (Song 6:9 = Gen. 30:13). But in the end, she was an Egyptian girl, and her heart was always going to be there. She hates the way she's not accepted in Israelite society, and their relationship has been a series of clandestine meetings in the open air, with her having nightmares in Song 3,5 about the Israelite soldiers and watchmen finding her.
Sin never satisfies. The daughters of Jerusalem and the watchmen (i.e. the prophets? Gad, Nathan? Whoever wrote Ps. 127 as a warning to Solomon?) were constantly watching them and being critical of her (Song 5:7,16; 8:1), they despised her. See on :6. Contrary to what Solomon had tried to kid her, the daughters of Jerusalem did not love and adore her (Song 6:9). They despised her, and the girl now sees things as they really are- straight after having sex at the end of Song 7.
She speaks of her taking the initiative and grabbing hold of and kissing Solomon in the street. This is exactly the picture of the wicked Gentile woman of Prov. 7:13. Again the point is made that Solomon was blind to his own wisdom, it took no personal lodgment in his own heart. And so it can be with those who hold and teach God's truth today. Even worse, since Solomon is the author of the Song, he hereby recognizes what has gone wrong and does nothing about it.
Song of Solomon 8:2 I would lead you, bringing you into my mother’s house,
who would instruct me-
We recall how Isaac brings his wife Rebekah into his
mother's tent to consummate the marriage. Her desire is still as it was at the start of the Song, as noted on
Song 1:4. She wanted to be instructed by her Egyptian mother, not by
Solomon; who was in the business of writing his Proverbs at this time to
instruct in God's ways. And she wants to be the one who would "lead you"
[Solomon], or guide him. She didn't want his instruction, but wanted to
instruct him in the ways of Egypt. It is the intended reversal of how
Isaac brought and lead Rebecca into his mother's tent (Gen. 24:67).
The Shulamite desires instruction from her Egyptian mother;
whereas Solomon repeatedly has taught in Proverbs that the spiritual
person would seek instruction from God's wisdom mediated through believing
parents.
I would have you drink spiced wine, of the juice of my pomegranate-
This could be an offer of conditional sex, if Solomon were to agree
to her returning to Egypt and being under the instruction of her mother. I
take Song 8:1-8 to be her fantasy, her desperate dream, for Solomon's
return to her and for them to have an open, legitimate, public
relationship but on her terms- in Egypt. She dreams of asking him to
commit to her ("set me as a seal upon your heart", Song 8:6), but
concludes by telling him to flee far away from her, although she still
calls him "my beloved" (Song 8:14). It's a tragic, unfulfilled ending.
Song of Solomon 8:3 His left hand would be under my head. His right hand
would embrace me-
The conditional tense of "would" is significant. As suggested on :2,
it could be part of her fantasy. Or it could also be her attempted
manipulation. She seems to be saying ‘I’ll have sex with you, as you
offered in Song 7:12, if you agree to be an Egyptian’ (and Song
4:16; 5:1,4-6 would imply they did have intercourse). But
throughout the Song, Solomon describes her in Jewish terms, he likens
her to many well-known places in Israel: the Heshbon fishpools, the
tower of Lebanon etc., seeing the way her hair draped over her breasts as
reminiscent of how Mount Gilead looked (Song of Solomon 4:1,4). He wanted
to see her as an Israelite girl, and so that was how she appeared to
him.
Song of Solomon 8:4 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, that you not
stir up, nor stimulate my love, until he so desires-
Again she tries to stop the daughters of Jerusalem, the Jewish
candidates as Solomon's wives, from being attractive to him. But her
bitter adjuration of them is mere words, it has no power.
Daughters of Jerusalem
Song of Solomon 8:5 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her
beloved?-
The answer of the daughters of Jerusalem is said as a final triumph.
They bid her watch an engagement procession coming into Jerusalem from the
wilderness outside the city, with a young woman or girl (see on :8)
leaning on her beloved, Solomon [for so his Hebrew name Jedidiah means in Hebrew]. Heb.
"whose is this one who comes up...?" is gloating that as in chapter 5,
Solomon arrives in a marriage procession- but not for her, the supposedly
"beloved", but for another woman.
Earlier in Song 3:3 the daughters of Jerusalem have teased or jeered the Shulamite in the same way, asking her again "Who is this who comes up from the wilderness...?". Then, it was Solomon's wedding procession, and the description climaxed in the statement that the marriage litter is paved with love... for... the daughters of Jerusalem! The whole scene spoke of how the Shulamite progressively comes to understand that Solomon is in fact also in love with the daughters of Jerusalem and will marry them too. Only now in Song 8 do we see the Shulamite facing reality and walking out of the relationship, with the daughters of Jerusalem again jeering her.
LXX "Who is this that comes up all white...". The woman had earlier feared that her darker skin colour would be a turn off for Solomon. The daughters of Jerusalem now rub this in- that Solomon is appearing with a white skinned woman leaning on him as his partner.
Beloved
Under the apple tree I aroused you. There your mother conceived you. There
she was in labour and bore you-
"Aroused" can as well be translated "undressed".
The Egyptian girl watches in shock at the engagement procession
coming from the desert, realizing with shock that she has been trounced,
and all Solomon's words of unique affection were proved untrue as he
arrived with his latest girl. Her angry response is totally imaginable. It
is, effectively, "But you and me, we had sex together! And now... you're
marrying another woman! And she's only a kid, she's not even got developed
breasts!". It's the stuff of movies. She even claims they had slept
together at the very spot where his own mother both conceived and gave
birth to him, as if this was intended to be a defining moment in cementing
their relationship. She has likened him to a hind deer, and hinds were
known to return to their own birthplace beneath a tree to give birth to
their own fawns. She considers therefore that their sex together at that
spot was really a unique bond which precluded him from now marrying
another woman. Now finally she accepts the
reality of the fact that he is a polygamist, and has other women in view.
Lover
Song of Solomon 8:6 Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is
strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of
fire, a very flame of Yahweh-
The Shulamite asks Solomon to not have her as another ring on
his finger [or bracelet on his arm], but a seal upon his heart. Although
at this point the relationship breaks up, Solomon does marry her, and she
turns away his heart. A seal implies ownership; and she did in the end
want his heart, which was her intention from this point onwards. So in the end, he did set her as a seal on his
heart- and the Biblical commentary is that she turned away his heart from
God. Her reference to jealousy is to be understood in the context of all
the jealousy we have encountered in the Song between her and the daughters
of Jerusalem, and her nightmares of Solomon's marriages with other women.
That jealousy, and the flashes of fire that come out of it in terms of the
difficult relationship between her and Solomon, was going to continue in
its cruelty until the grave. And in Ecclesiastes Solomon recognizes this.
Again, seeing he is the author of this Song, he is lamenting that indeed
this is how it had been with him and her. The cruelty of her jealousy
would follow him to his grave. She is saying that love means jealousy- and
indeed God's love is often associated with His jealousy. And therefore,
she reasons, it's impossible to be in love with a polygamous man without
jealousy issues, and the flashes of fire in their relationship were in
fact of Yahweh in that His ideal for marriage was being compromised.
Solomon wrote this. He put these words in the mouth of his character. He
realizes it, writing perhaps now in later life, the reflections of a
polygamist. No wonder he had to build Pharaoh's daughter a separate house
to live in. Life together was going to be impossible.
"Love is strong as death" may mean that she claims marriage to be unto death, sealed permanently. And therefore seeing he has other women, her jealousy will be cruel as death. Because finally she accepts that Solomon involved with many other women. The cruel jealousy would also refer to that between her and the daughters of Jerusalem, which she suggests will meet Yahweh's flaming condemnation. For "A lightning-flash from Yah" is speaking of Divine judgment (Dt. 4:24 etc.). Solomon was led by this woman into an impossible situation, a polygamist married to a woman who loves him [so she claims] with the love that has to therefore be jealous. And it will lead to his condemnation. Solomon is the author of all this- he places these words on her lips. He realizes he is going to be condemned because of this woman, but as in Ecclesiastes, he just accepts that and will not come to repentance.
"Love is strong as / unto death" is parallel with jealousy being cruel as / unto sheol, the grave, death. She is protesting that she still loves him, and her parting words call him "Beloved". She says she will love him unto death, but because love and jealousy are linked, she will be jealous unto death. And that jealousy will be like sparks of fire, from Yahweh. And so began an impossible relationship. She loved him to the end of his life, to death, and was jealous to the end of his days- because he was a polygamist. And so he had to live with the flashes of fire from her, which were from Yahweh in that this was judgment for breaking His marital principles. For all his wealth and power, this woman was indeed like bands upon him. It was misery for them both, for life. And he is writing this Song looking back on his life, as the "old and foolish king who will not be admonished", recognizing that.
Or we could read these words as Solomon's words to his new bride with whom he has just arrived, a marriage vow demanding her total loyalty to him. His mention of jealousy was made in the hearing of the Egyptian girl. There was indeed a jealousy as cruel as the grave between the Jewish girls and Solomon’s Egyptian lover. And so the Song ends on a most unhappy note; Solomon is unfaithful and the two separate, rather than there being the consummation we might expect. As noted on :21, he is alluding to the language of covenant with God (Dt. 11:18) and applying it to his wife's covenant with himself. He is warning that just as Yahweh is jealous if His covenant is broken, so he will be. And yet he felt free to flout the covenant himself, as he had just demonstrated by doing all this in view of the Egyptian girl he had been so infatuated with.
Song of Solomon 8:7 Many waters can’t quench love, neither can floods
drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he
would be utterly scorned-
Solomon had taught that the sexually unfaithful man will pay all the
wealth of his house because of it, and still will not make things right
(Prov. 6:31). Solomon claims in this hasty marriage vow that although he
is wealthy, he now has found true love with his next wife, which cannot be
purchased for money. And yet in the end, he did give all the wealth and
glory of his house for his sins, because his wives turned away his heart
from Yahweh and his kingdom / house suffered because of it, as he so often
laments in Ecclesiastes. And he was indeed utterly scorned after his death
(1 Kings 12:11), as he foresaw coming at the end of his life in several
passages in Ecclesiastes.
Sarcasm fills the Song of Songs and Song 8 is full of it. Solomon was the most wealthy man on earth at the time, and the Shulamite is saying that even all his wealth cannot now buy her love. She scorns it. In :11,12 she will comment further upon Solomon's way of paying money to those who find and "keep" his potential wives. And probably she alludes to how the women agreed to be considered as his wives because of the perceived financial benefit to their families.
Daughters of Jerusalem
Song of Solomon 8:8 We have a little sister. She has no breasts. What shall we do for
our sister in the day when she is to be spoken for?-
The girl has arrived leaning upon Solomon. But she is still a minor
and her breasts not developed yet (Ez. 16:7,8). Before her day of being
spoken for, the day of actual marriage, the daughters of Jerusalem vow
they will prepare her to be a replacement for the Egyptian woman (see on
:9).
To speak for a woman meant to ask her to get married. The same Hebrew is in 1 Sam. 25:39 when David sends messengers to speak for Abigail to be his wife. The daughters of Jerusalem are cruelly teasing the Shulamite. Solomon's wedding procession, to another woman or women, is approaching. And, by the way, we have an up and coming small breasted sister, Solomon will speak for her soon. This is getting at the way Solomon has praised the Shulamite for her large breasts and she is confident in her breasts being attractive to him ["my breasts were like towers", :9]; for her breasts are mentioned multiple times in the Song especially in the LXX.
The Song ends without the famous final scene which we expect in a
romance. The expectation of a wedding and walking off into the sunset is
subverted by the concluding songs. The girl laments how she can't kiss
Solomon publically or be with him without being despised; and longs to be
able to take him back to her mother in Egypt (8:1,2). She utters the final
warning to the daughters of Jerusalem not to stimulate Solomon, and then
breaks down with the lament that jealousy is cruel as death (8:6) and
unrequited love is impossible; Solomon's true love cannot be bought by
her. The daughters of Jerusalem then speak of how they have a younger
sister whose breasts aren't yet developed, but they will care for her
until she is ready for Solomon (8:8,9). The Egyptian girl then reminisces
in the past tense: "I was a wall, and my breasts were like fortress
towers. Then I found favor in his eyes" (8:10). Solomon throughout the
Songs has commented positively upon her breasts; and now she is left to
lament that that is all just how it was, it's all over now. She then makes
the enigmatic comment about how Solomon has a vineyard which he leases
out, and yet she is a vineyard which belongs to her alone: "My vineyard,
which belongs to me, is at my disposal alone". The Songs have likened her
and her sexuality to a vineyard (Song 2:13,15), and her romantic meetings
with Solomon appear to have sometimes been in a vineyard. Solomon spoke of
her breasts as grapes (7:7). But Solomon's vineyard, she says, was
associated with Baal-Hamon- Lord / husband of a multitude. She finally
realized that he was a womanizer, who would go on to have over 1000 women
in his life... Lord [or husband] of a multitude. Perhaps his 1000 wives
and concubines lay behind her reference to the 1000 shekels that Solomon
can have for his vineyard (8:12). But now she was splitting up with him,
her vineyard was hers alone, her grapes were now solely at her disposal
and were not his any more. The final couplet of the Song is one of bitter
sarcasm, typical of the worst order of romantic breakup. Solomon says that
his "companions"- the daughters of Jerusalem whom she had so hated- are
listening carefully to her, as he is. And she responds by telling him to
run away, whilst still calling him her "beloved"- for although jealousy is
cruel as the grave, her love for him was unquenchable by many waters. Or
perhaps this too is sarcasm. So the Song ends with Solomon in rather a bad
light- off to his next women, whilst the Egyptian girl walks off the scene
bitterly protesting her love for him and how she's a victim of
circumstance and jealousy. Yet Solomon, presumably, authored the Song. I
read it therefore in the same way as I do Ecclesiastes- his jaded
statement of how life has been for him, how he sought fulfilment of his
human lusts but it never worked out, leaving him with a tragic sense of
unfulfilment because he had not gone God's way.
Song of Solomon 8:9 If she is a wall, we will build on her a turret of
silver. If she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar-
The daughters of Jerusalem may be sarcastically saying that
they will be the door that keeps her within the harem once they have inducted
her into it, and the wall that keeps her within it. On :11,12 I discuss
the payment for introducing a woman to the harem and keeping her there.
"Boards of cedar" were the typical building style in Solomon's buildings,
so we can assume the reference is to the house of the women which was also
built with cedars. And the daughters of Jerusalem are saying they will
keep the new candidate safely within it, unlike the Shulamite who escaped
from it to meet secretly with Solomon.
This is the language with which Solomon once described the Egyptian girl. The daughters of Jerusalem vow to turn this young girl into a woman just as good as the Egyptian. The idea of enclosing her and keeping her as a wall may mean that they promise to keep her chaste until the wedding, unlike the Egyptian woman whom they all knew would not have been a virgin at any wedding with Solomon (Song 5:1; 6:12).
Beloved
Song of Solomon 8:10 I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers, then I
found acceptance in his eyes-
She is very confident of her own beauty, as in Song 1:5; 8:10. She
comes over as bold and ever on the initiative; she goes out looking for
him (Song 3:1-5; 5:6,7). She is the very fulfilment of Solomon's 'bad
woman' of the Proverbs. She hears how the new queen for Solomon is still a
minor and her breasts not developed yet (Ez. 16:7,8). And so she bitterly
reflects about her own sexual adequacy and how "I was a wall [with
turrets]", and her breasts which she speaks of were "in his eyes as one
that found favour" (Song 8:10). For Solomon had repeatedly praised her
breasts (Song 2:7; 3:5; 4:9; 8:14). But now she sees that was all
surface level; he is going to marry a young girl from the daughters of
Jerusalem, once her breasts have grown. And she has had to endure watching
the engagement ceremony.
But "acceptance" translates shalom. She is saying that in the past, when he admired her breasts, she was seen by him as the Shulamite, the feminine form of 'Solomon'. She “was in his eyes like [the] one who has found peace” / Solomon. Then she was the Shulamite- but not now.
Song of Solomon 8:11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out
the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver
for its fruit-
This is another parable of a vineyard, of which there are at least
two in scripture. The vineyard may refer to virginity or sexuality (as in
Song 6:11; 7:13). His 1000 shekels received for it may refer to his 1000
wives. The Songs have likened the Shulamite and her sexuality to a
vineyard (Song 2:13,15), and her romantic meetings with Solomon appear to
have sometimes been in a vineyard. Solomon spoke of her breasts as grapes
(Song 7:7). But Solomon's vineyard was associated with Baal-Hamon- Lord /
husband of a multitude. She finally realized that he was a womanizer, who
would go on to have over 1000 women in his life... Lord [or husband] of a
multitude.
The "keepers" would be the keepers of the "house of the women", whom Shulamite has twice clashed with, at least in her dreamscape in Song 3 and Song 5. By contrast, Shulamite says that she keeps her own vineyard- she is now free from her guards and out of that house. And as she has commented in :7, her love cannot now be bought for money. Or "Each would bring in his fruit [i.e., a virgin] for a thousand pieces of silver” could refer to the harem managers being rewarded for each woman they brought in to it. But now the Shulamite rejects both Solomon and harem life in the next verse: “My vineyard, which belongs to me, is still before me. Keep your thousand [pieces of silver] and the two hundred for those who guard its fruit” (8:12). "Those who guard its fruit" would then refer to the guards of the harem.
It could be argued that 1000 silver shekels for rent of a vineyard was very expensive. Even in mid third century Greece, rental of a vineyard was never more than 20 silver shekels. 1000 shekels was a huge royal grant (Gen. 20:16; 2 Sam. 18:12) and was the cost of a fine vineyard in Is. 7:23: "The fine vineyards, each with a thousand vines and each worth a thousand pieces of silver, will be overgrown..." (GNB). The Shulamite could be saying that Solomon's vineyard, his harem, his being Baal Hamon, lord of the multitude, was grossly overpriced anyway. He was hollow, it was all for show, with far less real value than appeared. And she wasn't wrong. Likewise the 200 shekel payment to the vineyard guards was out of proportion. However we can also read her as saying that the 1000 women were worth only one shekel each- they were cheap women, paid only one shekel to enter the harem. And there is the suggestion that they were rented women, for the 1000 shekels is rental money. She is accusing all the others of being whores, bringing to a peak her struggles with them throughout the Song.
Song of Solomon 8:12 My own vineyard is mine alone-
Perhaps his 1000 wives and concubines lay behind her reference to the
1000 shekels that Solomon can have for his vineyard (8:12),
possibly referencing the money given as reward to those who brought girls
into the harem [a shekel / woman]. But now she
was splitting up with him, her vineyard was hers alone, her grapes
[elsewhere used as symbolic for her nipples] were
now solely at her disposal and were not his any more.
The thousand are for you, Solomon; two hundred for those who tend its
fruit-
I suggested on :8 that this talk of vineyards forms an inclusio with
Song 1:6, where the girl's vineyard is her virginity, which she had given
Solomon, much to her brothers' anger. Now she insists her vineyard is hers
alone and not his. And he can let his 1000 wives (:11) have his own
vineyard. Those who tend the fruit may refer to the daughters of
Jerusalem, whom she saw as being responsible for getting the young girl of
:8 to get engaged to Solomon, and who were the servants of his 1000 wives.
"The thousand" would be an appropriate way for her to talk about
the harem. This is the only place in the Song where she addresses Solomon
by his name, Solomon- unusual for a wife in those days. She was supposed
to call him by some title; recall how queen Esther had to address her
husband. To use his first name was rude. But she is telling him things as
they are...
Lover
Song of Solomon 8:13 You who dwell in the gardens, with friends in attendance, let me
hear your voice!-
This is very hard to interpret, but the idea seems to be that he
addresses the Shulamite ["you" is singular feminine in the original]. He
sees her as still there "in the gardens", where they used to have their
trysts. And he addresses also the listening daughters of Jerusalem, the
"friends in attendance" upon the young girl of :8 whom he has just gotten
betrothed to. "Let me heart your voice" is the very phrase he has used to
the Shulamite in Song 2:14. I take this to mean that he is asking the
Shulamite, in the presence and audience of the daughters of Jerusalem, not
to forsake him. He still wants to hear her voice. She responds negatively
by telling him to go away (:14), and yet still calls him her beloved. This
leads me to the suggestion offered on :14 that this ill-fated relationship
only ends for a time; and Solomon does in fact marry Pharaoh's daughter.
We could read this as saracasm. She says she has her "friends in attendance", when Solomon knew the daughters of Jerusalem hated her. And then "let me hear your voice" could be sarcastically saying 'Speak on, speak your truth girl, just carry on'. On the other hand, he did love her to some degree, and we can read this as if he wants her with him, so he can hear her voice. She likewise replies by asking him to go away, but still calls him her "beloved". And in the end they do marry, although it was a disaster.
But the 'enclosed garden' has been a figure for virginity, and
entering the garden means sex. It's as if Solomon now addresses
other women in the gardens, and the attendant friends, the daughters of
Jerusalem, and asks them to attend to his voice, his voice of crooning
love. Hence the Shulamite sarcastically responds in :14 by telling him to
indeed clear off to them.
Beloved
Song of Solomon 8:14 Go away, my beloved. Be like a gazelle or a young stag on the
mountains of spices-
"My beloved" is male singular. These are the words of the woman, telling Solomon to go away, and to race on to his next tryst. Earlier she has invited him to be like a gazelle or young stag on the mountains of Bether or cleavage, her own breasts (Song 2:17). Now she tells him to do the same on other mountains which have spices on them. The same word is used in Esther 2:10 of how the virgins in the house of the women, awaiting their night with the king, were prepared with "spices". Gazelles have a way of twisting and turning in a totally unpredictable way... and that was how she felt he was, always on the move, darting here and there in his endless search for sexual gratification. And so he was. Yet what happened to Solomon and Pharaoh's daughter? Despite this breakup, they did marry, and then Solomon built her a separate house at a later point. I suggest that in writing this Song, he is looking back to their initial relationship and explaining how all went so wrong at the start, and how he now understands her motives for the relationship.
The Song ends abruptly, with the relationship at an end. The entire book has no particular plot or storyline. It begins with her talking about sex, and after various breakups and tensions, they abruptly leave each other. And this is the path of so many who live their lives without God in their relationships. There is no real plot, it's all about present pleasure, and so it ends. We are left feeling this, and seeing how this sad, vain, pointless, painful experience of "love" falsely so call will play its part in the disillusion and depression of Solomon in later life. We have the record of that in Ecclesiastes, and it is a picture of our postmodern, immoral age.
The final couplet of the Song is one of bitter sarcasm, typical of the
worst order of romantic breakup. Solomon says that his "companions"- the
daughters of Jerusalem whom she had so hated- are listening carefully to
her, as he is. And she responds by telling him to run away, whilst still
calling him her "beloved"- for although jealousy is cruel as the grave,
her love for him was unquenchable by many waters. Or perhaps this too is
sarcasm. So the Song ends with Solomon in rather a bad light- off to his
next women, whilst the Egyptian girl walks off the scene bitterly
protesting her love for him and how she's a victim of circumstance and
Israelite jealousy. Yet Solomon, presumably, authored the Song. I read it
therefore in the same way as I do Ecclesiastes- his jaded statement of how
life has been for him, how he sought fulfilment of his human lusts but it
never worked out, leaving him with a tragic sense of unfulfilment because
he had not gone God's way.
We may well enquire why the Song was written and preserved. For who wants to keep such a record of a failed relationship, of passion which turned to pain? It is here that Divine inspiration comes into play. For the recording of it was inspired, as was the record of the nihilism of Solomon in Ecclesiastes, for our learning. That we might see the end of sin, of thinking that mere possession of God's truth is enough, and not personalizing it. Another take is that the girl was indeed the daughter of Pharaoh (Song 7:1), and despite this stormy start to their relationship, the break up of Song 8 was only temporary and they did in fact marry; see on Song 3:4. Indeed he found her hands were as bands, as he laments in Ecclesiastes and Proverbs about the bad woman. And yet the Song of Songs is preserved as a record of how unspiritual relationships don't ultimately work. For she turned away his heart from Yahweh to the idols of Egypt. In the end, despite the apparent victory of Solomon's lust and power at the end of the Song, it is she who wins. For she turns his heart away from Yahweh and Israel, and to her idols and Egypt.
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