Song of Songs
in Hermeneia
Pages
233
Publisher
Fortress Press
Published
1/7/2025
ISBN-13
9780800699017
There is no other book in the Bible like the Song of Songs. It is a highly literate collection of love poems, at times intense with erotic desire and at times playful or flirtatious. This commentary draws out the tone of each poem, along with its language and literary qualities, including its metaphors, allusions, and clever use of words.
While there are correspondences between the Song and the literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they are cited in the commentary, the greatest foreign influence on the book comes from Greece. The commentary approaches the Song as a Jewish-Hellenistic work, in the full sense of that hyphenated term. It notes Greek ideas and tropes that appear throughout the book and shows how they have been adjusted and incorporated into Jewish thought and literary forms. The book's Grecisms are dressed in "biblical" idioms and imagery. Going beyond previous studies, this volume emphasizes that the Song's blending together of the Jewish and the Greek is part of its literary virtuosity.
While there are correspondences between the Song and the literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and they are cited in the commentary, the greatest foreign influence on the book comes from Greece. The commentary approaches the Song as a Jewish-Hellenistic work, in the full sense of that hyphenated term. It notes Greek ideas and tropes that appear throughout the book and shows how they have been adjusted and incorporated into Jewish thought and literary forms. The book's Grecisms are dressed in "biblical" idioms and imagery. Going beyond previous studies, this volume emphasizes that the Song's blending together of the Jewish and the Greek is part of its literary virtuosity.
Collections
This book appears in the following featured collections.
- Commentaries by Female Scholars by Best Commentaries
- Commentaries by Jewish Scholars by Best Commentaries
Reviews
DavidH
August 9, 2026
August 9, 2026
Berlin’s recent Hermeneia volume is an outstanding and highly original commentary that brings together close attention to the Hebrew text, sophisticated literary analysis, Jewish intertextuality and extensive comparison with Greek erotic literature. Her most distinctive contribution is her understanding of the Song as a thoroughly Jewish yet genuinely Hellenistic work, adapting Greek literary forms and motifs to Jewish language and sensibilities. This approach proves surprisingly fruitful in passages such as 5:2–6:3, where Greek parallels help illuminate the lament at the door and the body description without reducing the Song to imitation. Berlin is also exceptionally good on metaphor, wordplay, double entendre and the Song’s engagement with earlier Jewish Scripture. I am somewhat less certain than she is about the extent of Hellenistic influence and the relatively late dating that accompanies it, but even where her historical reconstruction is debatable, her exegetical observations remain extremely valuable. One of the finest technical commentaries now available.