When Love Gets Poetic (and Personal)
What’s Song of Songs 7 about?
This chapter captures one of the most intimate and celebratory moments in all of Scripture – a husband’s passionate praise of his beloved wife’s beauty, followed by her confident response and invitation. It’s poetry that celebrates married love without shame, showing us that physical intimacy within marriage is not just permitted but praised by God himself.
The Full Context
Song of Songs 7 comes at the climactic moment of this ancient love poem, likely written by Solomon around 970-930 BCE. The entire book celebrates the journey of love between a young woman (the Shulammite) and her beloved, from courtship through marriage and into mature marital intimacy. This isn’t allegory or metaphor – it’s a celebration of human love and sexuality as God designed it. The original Hebrew audience would have understood this as wisdom literature, teaching them that passionate love within marriage reflects something beautiful about God’s own heart.
The literary structure of Song of Songs moves through different seasons of love, and chapter 7 represents the full flowering of marital intimacy. By this point in the poem, the couple has moved beyond the tentative courtship of earlier chapters into confident, mutual celebration of their physical and emotional union. The cultural context is crucial here – in an ancient world where women’s bodies were often viewed as property or sources of shame, this text presents a revolutionary picture of mutual delight, desire, and dignity within marriage.
What the Ancient Words Tell Us
The Hebrew poetry here is absolutely stunning. When the husband begins his praise in verse 1, he uses the word na’avah – “How beautiful!” But this isn’t just “pretty” or “nice looking.” This Hebrew word carries the idea of something that brings delight, something that moves you emotionally. He’s not giving a clinical assessment; he’s overwhelmed by beauty that touches his soul.
Grammar Geeks
The Hebrew structure of verses 1-5 uses what’s called a wasf – an ancient Near Eastern poetic form where a lover describes their beloved’s body from feet to head (or head to feet). It’s like a verbal love letter, meant to be intensely personal and celebratory. The imagery isn’t meant to be literal – it’s metaphorical language expressing the inexpressible beauty the lover sees.
The progression of imagery is fascinating. He moves from her feet (pa’am – literally “steps” or “footsteps”) to her legs, her curves, her navel, her waist, her breasts, her neck, her eyes, her nose, and finally her hair. Each comparison draws from the most beautiful and valuable things in their world – precious stones, architectural wonders, towers, pools of water, mountains.
But here’s what’s remarkable: when we get to verse 6, the Hebrew suddenly shifts. The word ta’anugim means “delights” or “pleasures,” but it’s plural – not just one delight, but multiple layers of pleasure and joy. This isn’t just physical attraction; it’s comprehensive delight in the whole person.
What Would the Original Audience Have Heard?
Ancient Hebrew listeners would have been struck by how counter-cultural this poetry was. In most ancient Near Eastern literature, women’s bodies were described in terms of their reproductive function or their value to men. But here, the woman is celebrated for her own beauty, her own worth, her own desirability.
The metaphors would have resonated powerfully. When he compares her neck to an ivory tower (verse 4), ancient audiences knew that ivory was one of the most precious materials in their world – smooth, rare, valuable, and beautiful. Her eyes like pools in Heshbon would evoke images of clear, refreshing water in a desert climate where water was precious and life-giving.
Did You Know?
The mention of “the king is held captive by your tresses” in verse 5 uses royal imagery that would have been immediately recognizable. In the ancient world, being “captivated” or “bound” by love was seen as a wonderful thing – not weakness, but the kind of beautiful surrender that makes life rich and meaningful.
But perhaps most striking to the original audience would have been the woman’s response. Starting in verse 10, she doesn’t just receive his praise passively – she responds with confidence and invitation. In a culture where women were often expected to be silent about desire, her words would have been revolutionary: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”
Wrestling with the Text
There’s something we need to address honestly: many modern readers feel uncomfortable with this chapter. We’ve inherited centuries of teaching that suggested the Bible is somehow embarrassed about human sexuality, that godly people shouldn’t talk about bodies and desire. But Song of Songs 7 challenges that assumption directly.
The Hebrew text is unashamed in its celebration of physical beauty and desire. This isn’t crude or pornographic – it’s poetic and beautiful – but it’s also clearly sensual. The question becomes: what do we do with a biblical text that celebrates marital sexuality so openly?
The answer, I think, is that we need to let Scripture reshape our understanding rather than forcing our discomfort onto the text. If God inspired these words, then celebrating married love – including its physical dimensions – must be part of his design for human flourishing.
“When Scripture celebrates what many churches have whispered about, maybe it’s time to listen to Scripture.”
The woman’s confident response in verses 10-13 also challenges us. She’s not passive or embarrassed. She knows she’s beloved, she acknowledges her own desire, and she takes initiative in inviting intimacy. This isn’t the picture of female sexuality that many religious traditions have promoted, but it’s right here in God’s word.
How This Changes Everything
Here’s what strikes me most about Song of Songs 7: it presents marriage as a place of mutual delight rather than duty, celebration rather than mere procreation, and dignity rather than shame. Both the husband and wife are portrayed as active, desiring, celebrating participants in their union.
This has profound implications for how we understand God’s heart toward human sexuality. Rather than seeing physical intimacy as something to be tolerated or managed, this passage suggests it’s something to be celebrated and enjoyed – within the covenant of marriage.
Wait, That’s Strange…
Notice that nowhere in this chapter is there any mention of childbearing or reproduction. The celebration is purely about the joy, beauty, and pleasure of marital love itself. This challenges the idea that biblical sexuality is only about making babies – it’s also about making joy.
The woman’s confidence is particularly striking. In verse 10, when she says “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me,” she’s not expressing insecurity or seeking validation. She’s stating a fact she knows to be true. And then in verse 11, she takes initiative: “Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields.”
This challenges many assumptions about biblical gender roles. Here’s a woman who knows she’s desired, who experiences her own desire, and who takes leadership in pursuing intimacy with her husband. She’s neither passive nor ashamed, but confident and inviting.
Key Takeaway
Marriage isn’t just about companionship or procreation – it’s about mutual delight. When we celebrate our spouse’s beauty and worth, when we express desire without shame, and when we pursue intimacy with joy rather than duty, we’re living out something that reflects God’s own heart for human flourishing.
Further Reading
Internal Links:
External Scholarly Resources:
- The Song of Songs: A Commentary by Tremper Longman III
- Interpreting the Song of Songs by Craig Glickman
- The Song of Songs by Richard Davidson
Tags
Song of Songs 7:1, Song of Songs 7:6, Song of Songs 7:10, Song of Songs 7:11, Marriage, Love, Beauty, Desire, Intimacy, Hebrew Poetry, Sexuality, Covenant, Celebration, Wisdom Literature, Mutual Delight
