Song of Songs

 

There is one Song of Songs commentary to rule them all. It is that of J. Cheryl Exum in the Old Testament Library. It is undoubtedly the best written commentary I've ever read. Often you feel like you're reading an essay rather than a piece of technical writing. Especially when reading about poetry it's rewarding to read elegantly written material. Exum's creativity extends to her analysis of the Song as well. She has several innovative solutions to difficult interpretive problems. One example is her interpretation of Song 2:15 which I have built off of elsewhere. She also is attuned to key dynamics of the Song and understands, in particular, what the girl is trying to do in each of her parts. If you want to understand the Song as art and feel the passion of the lovers then Exum's work is a great place to start. Restraint in interpreting multivalent imagery is another of Exum's virtues. Some (male) commentators go wild and seeming to find genitalia in every other paragraph. Exum's explanations are much more nuanced and she wrestles hard with the question of if/when the Song crosses the line into voyerism. While discussing relevant technical matters she never gets overly detailed. The commentary also interacts with other scholarship less than many others do. This means you get to hear more of Exum and that is a good thing. This should be the first commentary off the shelf for work on the Song. [Full Review]

A thorough exegetical commentary from a feminist perspective. [Full Review]

The Song of Songs is seductive poetry, making it hard for readers to resist its exuberant unfolding of pleasure, desire, and erotic fantasy displayed in a multisensual atmosphere. J. Cheryl Exum has authored a truly seductive commentary on the Song in turn, a piece so splendidly written that this reader often found it difficult not to succumb to it either. Since succumbing is, however, not the sort of things one is meant to do as a reviewer, and since Exum’s commentary is first of all an eminent piece of critical scholarship, I shall accommodate to academic conventions and serve the legitimate expectations other readers may have when they turn to a review such as this. As it happens, Exum’s book has already been praised by two other, more timely critics (Athalya Brenner and Mark McEntire; see http://bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=4959&CodePage=4959). My comments shall therefore concentrate on aspects not touched upon or less developed by these predecessors. As Exum herself states with fully justified self-confidence, “the present commentary is the first to examine systematically gender differences and the role they play in the presentation of the relationship between the lovers in the Song” (81), and this is one major reason why her book makes such inspiring reading. [Full Review]

Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. Pp. 285. Hardcover. $29.99. ISBN 0801027128. Athalya Brenner University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1012 GC These two new books on the Song of Songs were published in 2005 within a few months of each other. Both belong to the recently debated genre/category of Bible “commentaries,” and both are written by established Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholars. The target audience of both is primarily the scholarly community. Both are of approximately the same length and affordably priced. And, of course, although they share similarities, they are fundamentally different. In order to present the similarities and the differences, I shall draw a comparative table, listing some of those aspects in general terms and according to relevant parameters. [Full Review]

It is difficult to believe the venerable Old Testament Library commentary series has been around for so long without a volume treating the Song of Songs. This gap has finally been filled by J. Cheryl Exum’s brilliant new volume. One lacuna remains, Jeremiah, while replacement volumes, such as Deuteronomy, Joshua, Isaiah, Proverbs, and Amos, are appearing fairly regularly (John Gray’s I and II Kings appears to be out of print, while a replacement has not yet appeared). Those familiar with Exum’s previous work might expect two qualities, a flawless and concise writing style and meticulous attention to the language and literary structure of the biblical text. Both of these expectations are more than fulfilled in Song of Songs: A Commentary. In these days of critical commentaries that explode in size, a volume like this that comes in at under three hundred pages, front matter included, is most welcome. The eighty-six pages of introduction are dominated by discussion of how the poetry and its language operate. Exum promises that “attention to the Song’s guiding poetic strategies, therefore, forms a major part of this commentary” (3). She labels the Song of Songs as “lyric” poetry (5), which she never fully defines. This designation seems to mean that the poem does not move in a clear linear direction, that it is irregular in its movements (33), and that a sense of narrative development is typically undone by the poem’s “circularity” (45). [Full Review]

Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005. Pp. xxiii + 263. Hardcover. $39.95. ISBN 0664221904. Hess, Richard S. Song of Songs Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005. Pp. 285. Hardcover. $29.99. ISBN 0801027128. Athalya Brenner University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands 1012 GC These two new books on the Song of Songs were published in 2005 within a few months of each other. Both belong to the recently debated genre/category of Bible “commentaries,” and both are written by established Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholars. The target audience of both is primarily the scholarly community. Both are of approximately the same length and affordably priced. And, of course, although they share similarities, they are fundamentally different. In order to present the similarities and the differences, I shall draw a comparative table, listing some of those aspects in general terms and according to relevant parameters. [Full Review]