Genesis 1 and 2 set forth God’s original design for human sexuality, and its profound portrayal of sexual love and marriage between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is paradigmatic for the rest of the biblical treatment of the subject.1 Later in Scripture, we find another couple in a beautiful garden, standing before each other naked without shame, equal without duplication, surrounded by exotic spices and fruits pleasing to the senses, animals sporting in their presence, and living waters replenishing their garden. As told in the Song of Solomon, it is a love story of paradise lost becoming paradise gained. According to its superscription, this inspired song is the “Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s” (Song of Sol. 1:1, NKJV)—that is, the best or most sublime of the 1,005 songs 1 Kings 4:32 notes that Solomon composed.
This entire book of the Bible extols the joy and beauty of human sexuality within the context of courtship and marriage. It actually constitutes a “return to Eden,” an inspired commentary on the first two chapters of Genesis, showing that humanity can still experience God’s original plan for intimacy in a broken world. This article will explore the riches of God’s plan for sexuality exemplified in the experience of the lovers in the Song of Songs. The biblical understanding of sexuality in the Song of Songs may be organized under 10 major headings.2
1. Creation order
In the Song of Songs, we come full circle back to the Creation in the Garden of Eden. It assumes sexual love to be a Creation ordinance, a “flame of Yahweh himself” (Song of Sol. 8:6, NJB). In lofty lyrics the lovers in the Song of Songs extol and enhance the creation of sexuality recorded in the first two chapters, Genesis as the book strongly upholds the Creation order of two biological genders, male and female (Gen. 1:27). The author of Song of Solomon has structured the whole book around the alternation of male and female lyrics.
2. Marriage is for heterosexual couples
According to the divine pattern established with the first couple in the Garden (Gen. 2:18–24), the sexual relationship is to be between “a husband [Heb. ’ish] . . . and his wife [Heb. ’isha]” (v. 24)3—literally, “a man . . . and his woman.” Such terminology indicates a heterosexual marriage relationship as the Edenic paradigm. The Song of Songs upholds such a heterosexual norm by describing the love relationship between King Solomon and the Shulamite woman.
3. Marriage is a monogamous relationship
In Genesis 2:24 the pairing of the noun “man/husband” (Heb. ’ish) with the noun “woman/wife” (Heb. ’isha) with both terms in the singular and not plural clearly implies that the marital relationship is to be monogamous, shared exclusively between two marriage partners and no more. The Song of Songs strongly supports a love relationship involving only two people, Solomon and the Shulamite. The evidence also indicates that Solomon was monogamous for at least the first 20 years of his reign and wrote the Song during this period (1 Kings 3:1; 7:8; 9:1, 4, 10, 22, 24; 2 Chron. 8:11).
4. Equality and mutuality
In parallel with Genesis 1 and 2, the book presents the lovers as equal, mutual partners, like Adam and Eve in Eden before the Fall. The keynote of the equal relationship appears in Song of Solomon 2:16: “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” Song of Solomon 7:10 actually depicts a reversal of the “curse” of Genesis 3:16: instead of the woman’s “desire” (Heb. teshuqah) being for her husband (as in Gen. 3:16), the Shulamite sings that her lover’s “desire” (Heb. teshuqah) is for her (Song of Sol. 7:10). Here is a reaffirmation of the full equality (“one-fleshness”) between husband and wife set forth in Genesis 2:24 (without necessarily denying the validity of Genesis 3:16). The Song reveals that after the Fall it is still possible for a man and woman to experience that mutual, reciprocal love designed by God in Genesis 2:24.
5. Wholeness
In harmony with the holistic anthropology of Genesis 2:7, in which a human being does not have a soul but is a soul, the Song is a critique of any dualism between body and soul. The Bible does not distinguish between an “inner self” (or soul), which may have a gender identity separate from the person’s biological sex, as transgender theory may assume.
Humans are a psychosomatic inseparable unity. Sexuality is not just the sex act—it involves the whole human being: physical, sensual, emotional, and spiritual. In the Song, every human pleasure combines physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects, stimulating each of them equally.
One of the key themes in the Song, the presence or absence of the lovers to each other (see esp. Song of Sol. 3:1–5; 5:2–8), highlights the concept of wholeness in sexuality. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”—the absence motif serves to heighten the meaning of presence. Lovers need each other to be whole.
Genesis 2:24 sets forth specifics of the divine plan for marital relationships, providing a concise theology of marriage: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” By using the term therefore, referring to what precedes, the verse indicates that the marriage of Adam and Eve provides the divine model for all succeeding ones. The verse emphasizes three essential characteristics of the marital relationship: exclusiveness, permanence, and intimacy. We find them also displayed in the Song of Songs, and they will be discussed in turn in the next three points.
6. Exclusiveness
According to Genesis 2:24, the man is to leave (Heb. ‘azab) his father and mother. At the time when Genesis was written, the ancient world assumed that the woman would leave her parents’ house when she married, but Moses announces what was revolutionary for his day: in God’s plan the man also must leave! Both are to leave their parents’ households. The “leaving” of Genesis 2:24 indicates the necessity of exclusiveness—freedom from outside interferences that would encroach upon the independence of the relationship, including the sexual relationship.
In the Song of Songs, the Shulamite expresses the exclusiveness of the relationship in the threefold refrain: “My beloved is mine and I am his” (Song of Sol. 2:16; cf. 6:3; 7:10), while Solomon likewise emphasizes exclusivity regarding his wife: “My dove . . . is the one and only” (Song of Sol. 6:9).
7. Permanence
As in the Genesis model, in which man and woman are to “cleave” to each other in a marriage covenant (Gen. 2:24, KJV), so the Song of Songs climaxes in the wedding ceremony. The symmetrical literary structure of the unified Song reveals an intricate design focused upon the central section, which describes the wedding of Solomon and his bride (Song of Sol. 3:6–5:1). The Shulamite’s words of inspired wisdom emphasize God’s design for permanence in the married love relationship: “Love is as strong as death. . . . Many waters cannot quench love” (Song of Sol. 8:6, 7, NKJV).
8. Intimacy
As in Genesis 2:24, where the “one-flesh” sexual union follows the “cleaving,” so in the Song of Songs sexual intercourse occurs only within the context of the marriage covenant: the groom testifies regarding his bride at the time of the wedding that she is a “garden locked” (Song of Sol. 4:12, ESV)—that is, a virgin. The Song of Songs contains a series of reflections encompassing the historical scope of the intimate relationship between Solomon and the Shulamite: from the courtship period (Song of Sol. 1:2–2:7) to the betrothal (Song of Sol. 2:8–17), reaching its climax in the wedding and the consummation of the marriage (Song of Sol. 3:6–5:1), and extending beyond with a depiction of ever-deepening intimacy in married life together (Song of Sol. 5:2–8:14). The Song depicts at least twelve kinds of intimacy: physical, work, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, crisis, conflict, aesthetic, commitment, creative, recreational, and communication.
The Shulamite makes clear in her threefold caution to unmarried female companions the need for guarding one’s affections and saving sexual intercourse until after marriage: “Do not stir up or awaken love until it is time” (Song of Sol. 2:7; 3:5; 8:4; cf. her own experience of chastity in 8:8–10).
9. Sexuality and procreation
As in the Creation account of Genesis 2, so in the Song of Songs the sexual experience within marriage is not linked with the utilitarian intent to propagate children. Its message is one of lovemaking for the sake of love and not for procreation. That is not to imply that Canticles is hostile to the procreative aspect of sexuality: the lovers allude to the beauty of their own conception (Song of Sol. 3:4; 8:2) and birth (Song of Sol. 6:9; 8:5). But the Song endows sexual union with value on its own, without any need to justify it as a means to some superior (procreative) end.
10. Wholesome beauty and joy
Both the Song of Songs and Genesis 1:31 portray sexuality (along with the rest of God’s creation) as tov me’od, “very good”—“wholesome, beautiful, and good”—to be celebrated and enjoyed without fear or embarrassment As in Genesis 2:25, lovers in the Song stand “naked and . . . not ashamed before each other.” In Solomon’s Song of Songs, we return to Eden. Lovers, even after the Fall, may still bask in the beauty of paradise. Set against a backdrop of a garden where all is sensuously beautiful, the lovers in the Song celebrate the beauty of married sexual love. In language that is sensual and yet in delicate taste, the lovers extol each other’s beauty. By means of poetic metaphors, double entendres that both reveal and conceal, the book describes the ecstatic pleasure of sexual intercourse. The very apex of the book—the exact center (Song of Sol. 4:16–5:1, with 111 poetic lines on either side)—consists of an invitation and its acceptance to become “one flesh” through sexual union. And God Himself pronounces His blessing upon this union in Song of Solomon 5:1b: “Eat, O friends! Drink, yes drink deeply, O beloved ones!” (NKJV).
Love as the “flame of Yahweh”
Here, we have a whole book celebrating the wholesome beauty and enjoyment of human sexual love. Sexuality in the Song is part of God’s good creation, and since God created it as a “flame of Yahweh himself” (Song of Sol. 8:6, NJB), it speaks eloquently—perhaps most eloquently of all—of His love for His creation as it is enjoyed in harmony with the divine intention. The book’s affirmation of human sexual love is, therefore, an implicit affirmation of the Creator of love. In the Song of Songs we have come to the supreme Old Testament statement on sexuality, even to—as Rabbi Akiba put it—“the Holy of Holies”: “For in all the world there is nothing equal to the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”4
The Song portrays paradisal married love as stunningly beautiful, wonderfully sensuous, an exuberant celebration, a thrilling adventure, an exquisite delight, full of pure sexual desire, unashamed and uninhibited, restrained and in good taste, light-hearted play, a romantic love affair, powerfully passionate, and an awe-inspiring mystery.5
God’s Edenic plan for sexuality between husband and wife is indeed beautiful, joyous, and awesome. Even though we are now in a fallen world, God invites men and women to experience His beautiful plan, as implied in the “therefore” of Genesis 2:24 and as modeled in the Song of Solomon, which depicts the holy beauty of sexual love as coming back to Eden. God promises the gift of His flame of love, which will burn ever brighter in the hearts and homes of human lovers so that they may experience ever more fully the glorious divine plan for sexuality—a return to Eden, ablaze with the flame of Yahweh!
- For discussion of God’s plan for human sexuality as set forth in Genesis 1 and 2, see the author’s book Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 15–54.
- For the exegetical details supporting the conclusions in this article, see Flame of Yahweh, 545–632; and Richard M. Davidson, “Song of Songs,” in Seventh-day Adventist International Commentary, vol. 6 (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2022), 1073–1391.
- Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotes are the author’s translation.
- Rabbi Akiba, Mishnah, Yadayim 3:5.
- For elaboration of each of these qualities of Paradisal married love, see Davidson, Flame of Yahweh, 607–621.
