Holy lyrics.
There are many songs in Old Testament Scripture—the song of deliverance from the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1-27.); the song of the well (Numbers 21:17, Numbers 21:18); the song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:1-52.); the song of Deborah ( 5:1-31.); the song (pre-eminently such) of David, in Psalms 18:1-50.; and the song of Isaiah (5). But this of Solomon is described as the Song of Songs, i.e. of all the most excellent, as it is the richest in imagery, the intensest in feeling, the most complete in poetic form. Although there is something dramatic in the structure of this poem, inasmuch as several speakers are introduced, uttering varying moods of feeling, still the poem is mainly lyrical, inasmuch as its spirit is prevailingly sentiment. Song expresses—
I. FEELING GENERALLY; AND FEELING OCCUPIES A PRE-EMINENT PLACE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE. True religion has its root in knowledge and belief; a God not known cannot be truly worshipped, a religion not understood cannot be acceptably practised. Yet religion is not merely an exercise, a possession, of the intellect. Our strongest convictions are naturally accompanied by our deepest emotions. The measure of feeling will, indeed, vary with individual temperament, but a religion with no sentiment is mechanical and unlovely. Now, it is in accordance with human nature that feeling should break forth into song. Cheerfulness finds utterance as in the carol of the lark, and melancholy as in the plaintive warble of the nightingale. The Bible without the Canticles would not correspond with the whole constitution of man.
"The Church delights to raise
Psalms and hymns and songs of praise."
The words of inspiration, exact or paraphrased and adapted, have ever given shape and form and utterance to the profoundest emotions of God's worshippers.
II. LOVE, WHICH IS THE CHARACTERISTIC ELEMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS LIFE. Human love is the copy, always faint and imperfect, yet not illusive, of love Divine. The love of the Hebrew king and his mountain bride figures forth, as does all true wedded affection—the love which exists between the Eternal and his intelligent creatures, between the Church and the adorable Bridegroom who deigns to address her as his spouse. The language of the Canticles has often seemed to cold natures extravagant, and so unreal. "Love's language is a foreign language to those who do not love." We have the foundation of the Song of Songs laid in the forty-fifth psalm—the "song of love." Christianity is admitted to have introduced into religion an element of deeper personal feeling than was known before. The love of Christ is declared to "pass knowledge;" and love which passes knowledge, which cannot express itself in propositions, must pour itself forth in song. The nuptials of the soul, of the Church, with Christ, demand a poetic epithalamium. How thoroughly in place, so regarded, seems the "Song of Songs"!
III. JOY, WHICH SPRINGS FROM LOVE FELT AND RETURNED. The history of love is not always one of uninterrupted prosperity and gladness. "Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought." And even in the Canticles we have varying moods; shadows lie upon the land for a season as clouds obscure the face of heaven. Yet the main current of feeling throughout this book is a current of gladness; the music is of the nature of a carol of spontaneous sweetness, a chorale of triumphant delight. The king and the bride alternately give utterance to their joyful emotions, for heart finds heart. So with the relations with the redeeming Lord and those whom he has saved. God rejoices over that which was lost but is found; and man rejoices in the great salvation. It is thus that the lyrics, though sacred, are glad, breathing a "joy unspeakable and full of glory."—T.