The Song of Songs was first a carefully crafted collection of secular love poems celebrating the physical, sexual, and erotic love between man and woman. Later, Jewish and Christian custom transformed it into a beautiful manuscript of religious belief. This alteration was deemed necessary once the Song became part of the Bible because God is not cited in the book at all. In the often-quoted passage Song 8:6, one expression, in particular, can be translated as a reference to God or not:
The last line, “a raging flame,” is probably a superlative, but some suppose that it uses the name of God and thus read it as “the flame of Yah.” This absence of any reference to the divine may have encouraged discussion about the Song’s inclusion in the canon.
The last line, “a raging flame,” is probably a superlative, but some suppose that it uses the name of God and thus read it as “the flame of Yah.” This absence of any reference to the divine may have encouraged discussion about the Song’s inclusion in the canon.