fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
It’s from the Biblical book, ‘The Song of Songs’, otherwise known as ‘The Song of Solomon’, and it shares the same theme as the earlier poem. It might not have the same
lyrical quality to it as Donne’s work of course, but remember that it’s translated from the Hebrew, and probably loses a lot in the translation. The theme, at any rate, is much
the same: Spring has come, love is in the air, and the time has come to sneak away for a romp in the woods!
That much is clear. What is not clear is what this is doing in the Bible! That is a question that students of the Bible have been asking for thousands of years! The other big
question for me is why the compilers of the lectionary chose to schedule this reading for Fathers Day! Well, maybe that was an accident, but the bigger question is not so
easy to solve:
Jewish Rabbis were debating the place of the Song of Songs in the Scriptures way back at the Council of Jamnia back in AD 90!
In the year 553 Theodore of Mopsuestia questioned the place of the Song in the Scriptures and was opposed by the second council of Constantinople.
1000 years later, in 1553 Sebastian Castellio was forced to leave Geneva after arguing with Calvin that the Song should not remain in the Bible.
At the very least we must admit that this ‘Song’ doesn’t fit the normal Biblical mould.
The Song never mentions God.
It reads as being positively bawdy at points!