Son 1:1 The song of songs, which [is] Solomon's.
Ver. 1. The song of songs.] Not a light love song - as some profane persons have fancied, and have therefore held it no part of the sacred canon - but a most excellent Epithalamium, a very divine ditty, a heavenly allegory, a mystical marriage song, called here the Song of Songs, as God is called the God of gods, Deu 10:17 as Christ is called the King of kings, Rev 19:16 as the Most Holy is called the Holy of holies, to the which the Jewish doctors liken this canticle, as they do Ecclesiastes to the holy place, and Proverbs to the court, to signify that it is the treasury of the most sacred and highest mysteries of holy Scripture. a It streams out all along under the parable of a marriage, that full torrent of spiritual love that is between Christ and the Church b "This is a great mystery," saith that great apostle. Eph 5:32 It passeth the capacity of man to understand it in the perfection of it. Hence the Jews permitted none to read this sacred song before thirty years of age. Let him that reads think he sees written over this Solomon's porch, "Holiness to the Lord." c Procul hinc, procul este profani, nihil hic nisi castum. If any think this kind of dealing to be too light for so grave and weighty a matter, let them take heed, saith one, that in the height of their own hearts they do not proudly censure God and his order, who in many places useth the same similitude of marriage to express his love to his Church by, and interchangeably her duty toward him, as in Hosea 2:19 2 Corinthians 11:2 Ephesians 5:25, with Ephesians 5:22,24, where the apostle plainly alludeth and referreth to this song of songs in sundry passages, borrowing both matter and frame of speech from hence.
Which is Solomon's.] He was the penman, God the author. Of many other songs he was both author and instrument. 1Ki 4:32 Not so of this, which therefore the Chaldee paraphrast here entitleth "songs and hymns," in the plural, for the surpassing excellence of it, "which Solomon the prophet, the King of Israel, uttered by the spirit of prophecy before the Lord, the Lord of all the earth." A prophet he was, and is therefore now in the kingdom of heaven, notwithstanding his foul fall, whereof he repented. For as it is not the falling into the water that drowns, but lying in it, so neither is it the failing into sin that damns, but dying in it. Solomon was also King of Israel, and surpassed all the kings of the earth in wealth and wisdom, 2Ch 9:22 yea, he was wiser than all men. 1Ki 4:31 And as himself was a king, so he made this singular song, as David did the 45th Psalm, "concerning the King," Christ and his spiritual marriage to the Church, who is also called Solomon, Son 3:11 and "greater than Solomon." Mat 12:42 If, therefore, either the worth of the writer or the weightiness of the matter may make to the commendation of any book, this wants for neither. That is a silly exception of some against this song, as if not canonical, because God is not once named in it; for as oft as the bridegroom is brought in speaking here, so oft Christ himself speaketh, who is "God blessed for ever." Rom 9:5 Besides, whereas Solomon made "a thousand songs and five," 1Ki 4:32 this only, as being the chief of all, and part of the holy canon, hath been hitherto kept safe when the rest are lost, in the cabinet of God's special providence, and in the chest of the Jews, God's faithful library keepers. Romans 3:1,2 ; Joh 5:39 It being not the will of our heavenly Father that any one hair of that sacred head should fall to the ground.
a Theodoret. lib. v. De Provid. Sic caena a Dionysio caeremonia caeremoniarum, et ab alio Pascha celebritas celebritatum dicitur.
b Jerome, Proaem. in Ezek.
c T. W. on Cantic.