Let me be a seal upon your heart, like the seal upon your arm, for love is fierce as death, passion is mighty as Sheol. - Song of Songs 8:6a (JSB)
Christians generally understand Song of Songs two different ways:
One, it sings of Christ’s passionate love for the Church—though, to be honest, I’ve never understood the metaphorical connection between the lover’s breasts being “like two fawns, twins of a gazelle” and the everyday life of a local congregation.
Two, the Song is an “extensive discourse on human, erotic love,” as Dr. Elsie Stern writes in her commentary in The Jewish Study Bible, celebrating such love and affirming it is a gift from God, blessed by God.
I generally go with the second perspective. I am grateful that such an earthy and erotic celebration of human love made it into both Hebrew and Christian scriptures (and has remained there).
Yet I’d like to add a third possibility for the kind of love the Song of Songs celebrates. “Let me be a seal upon your heart,” the singer asks and then proclaims, “for love is fierce as death, passion is mighty as Sheol.” Yes, the eros of two lovers can certainly be an expression of that fierce passion. So, too, can the experience of God’s love, however we’ve known it. So, too, can deep friendship. Friendship that is as fierce as death, and that will descend to the depths of Sheol with us and for us. Friendship that has our backs and is etched on our hearts, that even death cannot erase.
Perhaps I’m reading more into the passage than is there. But perhaps you’ve known such friendships. Perhaps today is a good day to remember them.
Prayer
Thank you, God, for those you’ve set as a seal upon our hearts. Amen.
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