Outlining the Song of Songs

Solomon’s Song of Songs is a love poem that illustrates love better than all the other 1,004 love Songs Solomon wrote.  This Song illustrate Love, God’s flame in the heart better than any other Song.  If you want to understand the love of God then this Song did it above all the other love Songs that an unmeasurable wise king wrote.  This one stands above all the rest in its ability for you to see and taste the Love of God like never before.

You may ask to what benefit do we have to outlining the Song?  The answer it that we get a better overall understand of the whole song especially in how it can be divided so as to understand God’s love in the progressive union of two lovers.  Outlining the Song properly is key to seeing the context of this superlative love Song in the Bible.  I will give 7 example of how one might divide up the Song starting with the simplest one.

As a Biblical owners manual for marriage the Love Song can most easily be divided up into 4 sections

1. Courtship 1:2-2:7
2. Proposal to Wedding 2:8-3:5
3. Wedding day to Married life 3:6-8:3
4. Conclusion 8:4-8:14

Using the 3x repeated phrase in 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4 as a guideline the Song can easily be divided up into 6 sections.

1. Beginning 1:2-6
2. 1st coming of Israel’s Messiah to his bride 1:7-2:7  or First date to being in his arms at the banquet hall.
3. 2nd coming of her beloved 2:8-5:1  From proposal to wedding day (which includes the wedding night).  Could be also a sub coming in 2:17-5
4. 3rd coming of her husband and friend 5:2-8:3
5. Eagerly Waiting with expectant hope for his 4th coming 8:4-8:14

Beginning, 1st date, proposal and engagement, wedding, life after marriage, conclusion.

Love arousing, love conceiving, love laboring and love giving birth.  1:2-2:7, 2:8-5:1, 5:2-8:3, 8:4-8:15.   This outline is most interesting to me because it follows Song of songs 8:5 in the NIV version and others where 4 things happen under the apple tree.  1.  Arousal 2. Conception 3.  Labor  4.  Birth

“She under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labor gave you birth.”  Solomon’s Song of Songs 8:5

1. Desiring to be one with Israel’s Messiah and king/King 1:2-4
2. Desiring to be one with the Daughters of Jerusalem 1:5-6
3. Desiring to be one and near to Israel’s shepherd/Shepherd 1:7-2:7
4. Her beloved proposes to her.
5. They get engaged
6. From separation at night to a stricter union with her feeling calm, peaceful and everything is okay at her mother’s house holding on to him tighter than before.
7. Wedding day
8. Laziness overcome after the honeymoon.
9. The rest of her life leaning on her beloved.
10. Concluding with her eagerly awaiting his return.

As far as union and communion go.  The bride and bridegroom experience closer and closer levels of intimacy in love through their holy union and communion with each other.  Or feelings of separation to feelings of greater and greater intimacy.

As it relates to the Christian life James Hudson Taylor outlines the Song in 6 sections

1. The unsatisfied life and its Remedy.  1:2-2:7
2. Communion broken. Restoration.  2:8-3:5
3. Unbroken Communion  3:6-5:1
4. Communion broken again. Restoration.  5:2-6:10
5. Fruits of Recognized Union.  6:11-8:4
6. Unrestrained Communion 8:5-8:14

1. Desiring your new king/King 1:2-3
2. Worshipping you new king/King 1:4
3. Accepted into his kingdom/Kingdom 1:5-8
4. Praised for your beauty and value 1:9-10
5. Promise to make you more beautiful 1:11
6. Beholding his/His excellencies expresses your desire to only please him/Him.  1:12
7. Love highly valuing the beloved. 1:13
8. Beholding the beauty and excellencies of your beloved. 1:14
9. Adoring, loving and fully delighted with doves eyes transfixed on each other. 1:15-16

It is interesting to not that as the bride’s love grows so does her maturity.  So also the maturity of a believer grows in phases.  1 John 2:12-14.  So also the Song could be divide up into the 4 phrases of Christian growth.  Babe, Child, Strong young man, Father.  The Galatians, Hebrews and Corinthians were Babes tossed to and fro from believing Salvation by works and salvation by faith.

1. Babe 1:2-2:7
2. Child 2:8-3:5
3. Strong Young Woman 3:6-8:4
4. Spiritual Mother 8:5-8:14

 

Her first seeing his love to her rouses her love to him/Israel’s Messiah then under the apple tree she roused him.  Under his love, care, protection and provision she aroused him. He desires to be roused by her.  And she can rouse him by drawing nearer and each section illustrates how she did it.  She pursues him by being readier for his return.  She is in hot pursuit of Israel’s Messiah, therefore we see love, God’s flame which burns hotter and hotter through each phase of the union.

Interesting to note breaking the Song up into Salvation terms.

A. Salvation.

We are “married to Christ” (Rom. 7:4). Marriage involves the whole person—mind, heart, will, body. A boy meets a girl and comes to know her with his mind. Perhaps this friendship deepens and his heart is captured. But he is not yet married to her. It is not until he says “I will” that he is married. Many people know about Christ, and even have emotional feelings that are exciting, but they have never said “I will” and trusted the Lord.

B. Dedication.

When a man and woman are married, all that they are and all that they have belong to each other. Their bodies are not their own (1 Cor. 7:1–5); they live to please the other. So it is with the Christian life: our bodies belong to Christ (see Rom. 12:1–2), and we live to please Him, not the world. Satan and the world (like Solomon in our story) may try to tempt us from our devotion to Christ (James 4:4), but we must remain true to Him. When a man and woman love each other, no sacrifice is too great, no burden is too heavy. See 2 Cor. 11:2 for Paul’s warning about “spiritual adultery.”

C. Communion.

This is perhaps the greatest lesson in Song of Solomon—the deepening communion that ought to exist between those who love each other. No matter where Solomon took the maiden, her heart was always with her beloved. She spoke of him, she dreamed of him, and when she was free, she rushed home to him. Do we have this kind of love for Christ? Do we see His beauty? (Ps. 45) Do we realize how much He loves us and longs to fellowship with us?

In Song of Solomon 5 we have an interesting picture of the believer’s communion with the Lord. The maiden is asleep, but the voice of her beloved comes from outside the door. He wants her to share her love with him, but she is too lazy to get up. “I have put off my coat; I have washed my feet.” It is as though she says, “Please, don’t bother me. I’m too comfortable.” Then she sees his hand (v. 4) and realizes her sin. Remember—his hands are pierced. She then rises, but, alas, her beloved has gone. He left some perfume at the door, but what good is the blessing without the Blesser? In trying to find her beloved, the maiden runs into trouble and discipline.

How often the Lord wants to fellowship with us during the day, but we are too busy. Like Martha (Luke 10:38–42), we are “troubled about many things.” How much happier our lives would be if we would only keep our hearts open to the stirrings of His love. Just as a loving husband and wife think of each other when apart during the day, so a faithful Christian ought to think of his Savior and fellowship with Him. In 1:1–7, the maiden sees no beauty in herself, but in 1:14–17, her beloved describes her beauty in tender words. She sees herself in 2:1 as the common rose, the ordinary lily, but the beloved sees her as a beautiful apple tree, as a lily among thorns (2:2–3). (In spite of what we sing in the familiar song, it is the woman who speaks in 2:1 and not the Lord.)

D. Glory.

The marriage has not yet taken place. We are engaged to our Lord, and the Holy Spirit is the “divine engagement ring” (Eph. 1:13–14). We have not yet seen Him, though we love Him (1 Peter 1:8). But one day the voice of the Bridegroom will be heard, and Jesus will return for His church. Then the wonderful marriage supper will take place (Rev. 19:1–9) and we shall forever be with the Lord. No wonder the maiden closes Song of Solomon by saying, “Make haste, my beloved.” We can only add, “Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

Wiersbe, W. W. (1993). Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament (So). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Many evangelical scholars interpret the Song of Songs as a lyric poem which has both unity and logical progression. The major sections of the Song deal with courtship (1:2–3:5), a wedding (3:6–5:1), and maturation in marriage (5:2–8:4). The Song concludes with a climactic statement about the nature of love (8:5–7) and an epilogue explaining how the love of the couple in the Song began (8:8–14).

Deere, J. S. (1985). Song of Songs. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 1, pp. 1008–1009). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

1. In Song 8:5 Solomons gives us an outline or an easy way of dividing up the Song.  This Song teaches illustrates how a wise man aroused the love of the one he loved.  In his words Israel’s king says to his bride.  “Under the apple tree I roused you.” Song 1:7-2:7 takes place under the apple tree. then the next day or after a season here love is conceived 2:8-5:1, love labors 5:2-8:3, love giving birth 8:4ff, oneness, perfect sweet harmony and the conclusion.
2. Yearning for the king.  From beginning to end.  Beginning, courtship, wedding and marriage.  Starts off with the bride expressing her feeling for the closest intimacy possible with Israel’s young yet wise anointed king 1:2-4.  And ends with her desiring his return as the two lovers are heart to heart.  They are one in reality not just positionally because of their union in love, the flame of God in them.
3. From being to end its nothing but love and the jealousy that bond them.
   1. Day 1 1st date, proposal and engagement.  1st night.  Day 2 Wedding.  Wedding night 5:2-6:9 ?. Day 3     Leaning and oneness
4. 1  Love aroused. 1st Meeting From 1:2-2:6 her love only grows, their union gets stricter and stricter. Freedom from slavery, acceptance into his fellowship. 2  Love conceived. 1st coming.  Covenant promise made, Engagement.  Wedding.  3  Love laboring in self-denial.  Proving your love in the wilderness.  4  Love giving birth. Love.  Jealousy.  Earnestly awaiting his return.