O ye daughters of Jerusalem

I’ve been thinking about the song of solomon lately and there are things I just don’t understand. Help me out

Growing up, I was told by my parents that the bible is the LITERAL word of God. There are no interpretations. There are so symbols or metaphors unless clearly stated, such as in the gospels. Everything, including the psalms, proverbs and the song of solomon was literal.

I was not allowed to read the whole song of solomon until very late in my courtship. My parents said it would stir up feelings inside young people and it would be bad for my purity. My parents did not believe that the song of solomon was a picture of Jesus and the church. Like many others, they believed it was about sexuality in marriage.

If you have read the song of solomon, you know that it’s full of references to different practices between a couple. But it also tells a love story of a couple.

Now, let me explain what my problem with it is. As far as I understand (literal that is), the two lovers meet outside:

Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green. (1,16)

Clearly a reference that they’re not holding hands out there, but most likely in the grass together.There are other references to sexuality as well, for example chapter 2, verse 3. They are obviously embracing too, see 2, 6.

Now let’s take a look at chapter 3, 1-4:

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

If we’re being literal here, then it doesn’t make sense. Why is her husband not sleeping in her bed? Why isn’t he even in the house? And why would she bring him into her mother’s house? Don’t we know that a man cleaves his wife and she leaves her mother and father? Then, why, just why would she do that?

Chapter 5, verse 6-7:

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

Again, he isn’t at her house. Why? And why would he come in the middle of the night, and then leave quickly? Why would she get beaten by the watchmen and be unveiled, which was a shame, if she was just looking for her husband? Again, makes no sense to me.

Chapter 7, 11-12:

Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.

Ok now, they either have something to hide or have a major thing for sex in the fields. Either way, I find it strange that they are constantly outside.

Chapter 8, 1-3:

O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother’s house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.

Alright, that’s just a plain weird thing to wish for your husband. I can imagine 100 different things that I wish my husband would be, but being my brother is not one of them. I realize that there might be a cultural difference, but the Thora tells us clear rules whom we shouldn’t marry, and your brother is one of them. If the girl in this song knew this and I have to believe she did, there can only be one reason why she would wish for such a thing: Because her lover is not her husband.

And that’s really the biggest question that I have about this book. To me, it’s clear they aren’t married. She still lives in her mother’s house, they meet out in the vineyards under the trees, he comes at night to see her but leaves quickly (maybe got caught?), the guards beat her for walking around at night (an unmarried woman, possibly a prostitute to them, that might be why she’s unveiled by them), her wish that he was her brother so she could officially show affection.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just way too stupid and whatnot to get it, and this frustrates me. If everything the bible says has a literal meaning, then why is there a book about a couple that has sex before marriage? Or am I just not understanding it?

This goes only for the literal reading. Interpretations will of course bring different results.

Either way, I’m puzzled. Comments and suggestions what I’m doing wrong are more than welcome!

 

Poetry and a fish in a bowl

Today is a wonderful day. The sun is shining and it’s warm outside.

I’m wearing an ankle-length dress. Not because I have to. Not because it’s modest. My friend wears these all the time. I asked her why she would wear something that in my mind was a fundamentalist way to dress. She showed me a magazine and said “Because they’re totally in style at the moment.” Wait, what? They are? Turns out they really are, so she borrowed me one of hers. Silly detail of today, but I’m feeling very far away from the fundamentalist doctrine of what a woman should or shouldn’t wear. I feel free because I’m wearing a dress I saw in a magazine. It’s the small things in life.

I’m excited to see what the day will bring. I’ll be working this weekend, so I will actually enjoy some ice cream and coffee with my friends today.

It is so strange. So different. I used to judge people like that. People who follow fashion, meet with their friends all the time, women who work. Now I’m one of them. Sometimes I feel like this isn’t actually happening, that I will wake up soon and realize I’m back in my sister’s room, getting up, starting housework, helping home school, preparing to be a wife.

When I left, I felt like a fish out of the bowl. Hardly breathing, struggling, not knowing what’s coming or what I should do. There’s really only one thing you can do, and that’s grow legs (and possibly some lungs). You got to grow legs fast.

My entire life, just like many many other girls and women, I was trained to be “perfectly prepared” for my future as a wife. If I was a wife now, I’d be fine. I’d do good. But now, I can hardly do anything. I had to learn about bills, what I have to get, what I have to pay, when I have to do it. How to actually read a contract and not wait for a man to do it. How to deal with time when you have a job outside of the house. How worrying it is to know that I and only I am the one who has to support herself. Fundamentalist girls aren’t trained to make money. Not even trained to worry about it. We’re trained to keep a small budget which the husband gives us. But that’s usually not all he makes. In emergencies, there’s always be a backup. But it’s worth it. The fact that I can sit here now, in my borrowed immodest fashion dress, considering buying one myself, knowing that I don’t have to ask for anyone’s permission. That’s totally worth it all.

I’ve been reading poetry lately. I always loved poetry, the reason why I loved psalms and proverbs. But I have found a poem that just moves something inside of me and I can’t really tell you why.

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

It’s the Lovesong of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. You can read the entire poem here. Though it’s about a man, it speaks to me. I feel like I know how he feels. And for some reasons, the last few lines always have me in tears.

Something totally different: I’ve been seeing that my posts are being shared on Facebook. I had no clue that you could actually do that. I don’t have a Facebook, either. Maybe I should get one and see who’s sharing me. Whoever it is, thanks a bunch!

I’m still trying to figure out how to get this blog to do what I want it to do. I want my blogroll to show up as a list with a preview of the newest posts of the people in my blogroll. I’ve been playing around but I just can’t seem to find the function.