Thoughts for Monday 6th July, 2020

Song of Solomon 2:8-13; Genesis 27:30-46; Romans 1:18-25

 

Monday 6 July

 

Song of Solomon aka Song of Songs is delightful love poetry. I’m not sure how this happened, but those responsible for the King James Bible came up with ‘voice of the turtle’ at verse 12 rather than ‘song of doves’. While we’ll sometimes get turtledove, and dove is probably more accurate, turtle, however, I actually think is more evocative.

 

I personally don’t think we should try to read too much into the text, but think we should simply enjoy it at face-value for what it is. That, though, has not always been the case. Origen (c.184 – c.253), for example, attempted an allegorical interpretation in which he claimed that rather than a man and a woman we should read it as a dialogue between God and the people of God. Later on others suggested Christ and the Church instead, and in the Middle Ages, when there was quite a bit of Mariology going on, the Woman in the poem was often said to be the Virgin Mary.

 

Which is a bit ironic given that it’s often been thought of as a bit too steamy to be read in Church. Since the 1970s, though, it has begun to find a new voice for itself. In the 1980s I read a book by the theologian, Phyllis Trible, called Texts of Terror. It’s about four stories in the Old Testament which depict women as victims of misogyny. Ever since the early 1970s, though, Phyllis Trible has argued that virtually the whole of the Bible is androcentric. One of the exceptions to that, she says, is Song of Songs; and if as a Church we are interested in achieving a much healthier (some would say godlier) gender-balanced society then we would do extremely well, she also says, to look to Song of Songs.

 

We were thinking the other day that the Hebrew meaning of the name Jacob may have been the origin of the phrase ‘pulling your leg’. Jacob definitely means heel, and it may also be that it’s the origin of the word heel when it’s used in the context of an inconsiderate and/or untrustworthy person?

 

The hymn ‘Immortal, invisible, God only wise’ is often said to be based on 1 Timothy:17: ‘To the eternal King, immortal and invisible, the only God—to him be honour and glory forever and ever! Amen.’ It may have been. But I think a stronger contender is our passage from Romans today in which we have not just immortal (at verse 23) and invisible (at verse 20) but wise as well (at verse 22). It was written by a Scot: Rev Dr Walter Chalmers Smith (1824 – 1908) who was born in Aberdeen, studied in Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and then worked in London, Glasgow (at the Tron Free Kirk from 1862 – 1867) and Edinburgh. In 1893/4 he was moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.

 

Let us pray (using a prayer from a gender sensitive Hebrew prayer-book):

 

O God, how can we know You? Where can we find You? You are as close to us as breathing, yet You are farther than the farthermost star, Amen.

 

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