king solomon and the dark lady in the song of songs

7/31/2019 King Solomon and the Dark Lady in the Song of Songs

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KING SOLOMON AND THE DARK LADY IN THESONG OF SONGS *

by

VICTOR SASSON

New York

IOne of the mysteries in the Song of Songs that have roused my

curiosity for some time is the identity-or, rather, the poetic

identity-of the lady who calls herself sehora and seharhoret in i 5-6.

Increasingly, I have come to conclude that the woman in questionwas Pharaoh's daughter whom Solomon loved and took for a wife.

Since the Song has elicited so much amount of published discussion

over the ages, I was not greatly surprised when I discovered that

this theory was already put forward a long time ago by Theodoreof Mopsuestia (5th century C.E.).1 It should not be inferred from

what I have said that I espouse the theory that the Song was written

in Solomon's times in celebration of his marriage. Such a thesis, as

well as others regarding the theme, structure, purpose, date, etc.

of the Song, is beyond the scope of this study. There is therefore

no need to raise questions which I shall not here attempt to answer.

The evidence that what is said of the lady in the Song is said in

reference to Pharaoh's daughter is cumulative and the followingpoints (and there may be others which escaped my attention)should therefore be weighed together.

The Bible credits Solomon with being a great lover of women.

The following verses from the books of Kings deserve to be quotedand examined.2 2

* The original version of this study was written in 1984 with substantial addi-tions made to it in 1985.

1 See the extensivebibliography

in M.Pope, Songof Songs(Garden City,

NewYork, 1977), pp. 233-88. For references to Theodore, see especially p. 119. Thereis a basic and major difference between Theodore's and my theory. Whereas heappears to view Solomon and the lady in the Song as historical characters, I viewthem as poetic characters based on, or linked to, biblical historical records, bothknown and unknown to us.

2 I have generally (but not always) cited the RevisedStandardVersionwhich keepscloser to the original text than the NEB.



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Now King Solomon loved many foreign women: the daughter of

Pharaoh, and Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite

women ... Solomon clung to these in love.(Revised Standard Version, 1 Kgs xi 1-2)

3

What is of significance here is that, while other foreign women

whom Solomon loved are lumped together, Pharaoh's daughter is

specially singled out.

The importance of Pharaoh's daughter in the personal history of

Solomon is indicated by the fact that she is mentioned four timesin 1 Kings (iii 1, vii 8, ix 24, xi 1-2).

In 1 Kgs iii 1 we are told of Solomon's marriage to her. The partof the verse that is of relevance here is: ze?yby'h 'l cyr dwd, "He

brought her to the City of David" (New English Bible). The signifi-cant element is, more specifically, the word In the Song i4 we read: "The King has brought me (hby' ny) into his chambers"

The occurrence of the verb hby cannot be merely coinciden-

tal. In fact, the verb is one of a number of literary links to the storyof Solomon's love for Pharaoh's daughter (cf. Song ii 4).

cyrdwd mentioned in 1

Kingsiii 1

is,of

course, Jerusalem.In the

Song the lady frequently addresses bnze?t yrze?slm("the daughters of

Jerusalem") and they, in turn, address her or respond to her. This

may be interpreted to mean that the woman was not a native of

Jerusalem. She appears to have been a foreigner, probablyPharaoh's daughter whom Solomon brought to 5r dwd

(Jerusalem). The detailed description of rejuvenation in nature and

the words b'rs and (" in our land") uttered by the lover to

his lady (Song ii 11-13) suggest that the woman he is addressing is

not familiar with Palestinian seasons. This reinforces the thesis thatthe lady was a foreigner.

The distinctiveness of Pharaoh's daughter and her special placein Solomon's affections is probably also referred to in the Song vi

8-9b, where we read:

There are sixty queens and eighty concubines,and maidens without number.

My dove, my perfect one, is only one,

The darling of her mother,flawless to her that bore her. (RSV) (See also Song vi 9 c.)

3 The phrase w't btpr'h may appear to be incongruous in the Hebrew verse butthe incongruity may legitimately be construed as a means of placing emphasis onPharaoh's daughter.



409

The only clear reference in 1 Kings to any wedding that Solomon

had is that to Pharaoh's daughter. The reference is in 1 Kgs iii 1

where the word wythtn occurs. In the Song iii 11 we read:

Come out, daughters of Jerusalem;you daughters of Zion, come out and welcome King Solomon,wearing the crown with which his mother has crowned him,on his wedding day (bywm on his day of joy. (NEB)

In the Song iii 6 we read:

Who is this coming from the wilderness,

like a column of smoke,perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,with all the fragrant powders of the merchant ?4

The word midbar in the present context appears to be the majorwilderness in the southern part of Palestine adjoining Egypt.Pharaoh's daughter would then be poetically visualized as emerg-

ing from the desert, on her way from Egypt to the fragrant pasturesof Palestine to meet her lover, Solomon.

Finally, one of the most direct and forceful of allusions toPharaonic connections is the exquisite simile contained in i 9:

To a mare among Pharaoh's chariot-horsesI compare you, my beloved.5

This allusion would speak aptly, in familiar Egyptian terms, to the

heart of Pharaoh's daughter. Again the allusion cannot be acciden-

tal ; it must surely be deliberate and is a link to 1 Kgs iii 1.

The reference in 1Kings

to Solomon's love for Pharaoh's

daughter makes it clear that Solomon's marriage to her was not

prompted by political considerations. The possibility, of course,cannot be excluded that Solomon loved Pharaoh's daughter and

also found it opportune to marry her for political reasons. How-

ever, the Bible comments ironically that, for all his proverbialwisdom, Solomon was but a fool in love-matters. His liaisons with

4 I have substituted "who is this" for RSV "what is that". The translations andcommentaries I have consulted understand the reference to be to Solomon's bedor litter (Song iii 7-8) but surely the reference is to the lady; cf. vi 10 and viii 5.

5 It is unlikely that the phrase brkbypr'h intends any military associations. Theverse, in its general context, seeks to convey an image of the beauty and courtlybearing of the lady.



410

foreign women and their cults eventually led to a politicaldisaster-the collapse of the unified monarchy (1 Kgs xi).

II

It may be objected that the woman referred to in the Song i 5,6, and 7 is not Pharaoh's daughter because in v. 7 the woman

clearly is addressing a shepherd and she, too, speaks as a

shepherdess. This objection, however, can easily be dismissed oncewe realize that the poet portrays Solomon the lover as both king and

shepherd and Pharaoh's daughter as both queen and shepherdess.On some occasions King Solomon and his queen speak as palacedwellers and on other occasions they speak as shepherds acquaintedwith the open country. This also accounts for the mysterious

change of scene from palace to countryside and from countrysideto palace.

A comparison with the Psalms may throw some light on the useof double persona of king and shepherd. In the Psalms we find that

God is sometimes addressed asKing

and sometimes asShepherd.Generally speaking, when the psalmist approaches God with awe

and reverence, God's glorious acts are recounted and God is pro-claimed King (e.g. Pss xcv-xcvii). However, when the psalmistdraws nearer to God in search of personal love and protection, God

is sometimes addressed as Shepherd (e.g. Ps. xxiii). Admittedly,the Song of Songs belongs to a literary genre that is very different

from that of the Psalms. It is interesting, however, that the Rabbis

in ancient times found it possible to interpret the love expressed in

the Song as God's love for his people. Such an interpretation-even

though we may not agree with it-certainly balances the interpreta-tion of the Psalms as man's deepest expression of love for God. The

royal couple in the Song act as shepherds because they feel impelledto return to nature's naked, fundamental realities. In nature the

royal couple's love is divested of the trappings of the palace which

can only act as a barrier to their expression of love for each other.

In nature their love finds its true and innocent self. To put it

slightly differently-and perhaps more accurately-the poetrealizes that, although love can flourish within the confines of the

palace, it is in nature that it can find its ultimate fulfilment or its

ultimate destiny. Nature is love's palace. Herein lies the reason

why the poet takes King Solomon and his Queen in and out of the



411

palace (sometimes at night) in pursuit of each other to celebrate

love in its natural habitat.

III

The Song i 6b and ch. viii 12 need some detailed comments as

they may shed further light on the relationship between the man

and the woman in the Song. The phrase bny 'my in i 6b should

perhaps be understood as "my folks" or "my relatives". smny ntrh't hkrmym krmy sly e n,trty may well be a popular saying, although this

cannot be proved. I would understand it: "I am coerced to lookafter other people's concerns, while neglecting my own." This

verse, in ch. i of the Song, no doubt links up with verse 12 of the

last chapter. But before we turn to v. 12, we note that in v. 11 a

particular vineyard of Solomon is referred to. This vineyard

appears to be a proverbial one-perhaps embodied in a proverbial

saying-since Solomon must have had more than one vineyard. In

v. 12 the lady is in a position to look after her own vineyard, her

own concerns, whereas before (i 6b) she was unable to do so. Thisindicates a certain degree of independence on the lady's part but is

in no way a rejection of Solomon as her lover, any more than thatthe last verse of ch. viii could be interpreted as such. While the

lovers are linked heart and soul to each other in love, they are,

nevertheless, entities that must move and act in freedom. This

acute tension between freedom and dependence is present through-out the Song.

IV

The words sehora and reharho-ret with which the lady describes her

skin complexion deserve at least some brief comments. The ancient

versions and modern English translations, as well as the various

commentaries, are not in full agreement about the exact renderingof these two words. Thus the LXX has ?,E7?aw&for sehora and

flEflEÀcxvwfltvr¡for seharhoret, and the Peshitta6 has for the first

and 'ze?kmt for the second. In English translations of the Bible sehorais generally rendered "black" whereas i-eharho-retis rendered "swar-

6 See The Old Testamentin SyriacAccordingto thePeshitta VersionII, 5 (1979), theSong of Songs edited by J. A. Emerton and D. J. Lane.



412

thy, dark". The Revised Standard Version has "very dark" for the

first word and "swarthy" for the second. In the Hebrew Bible the

adjective li§6r is used in reference to the colour of a person's hair

(e.g. Lev. xiii 3 1 , 37)7 and the verb shr is used in Job xxx 30 of Job's s

skin (cf. Lam. iv 8). The plural of 1£§6r is also used of horses in

Zech. vi 2, 6. Needless to say, there are various degrees of

blackness and darkness (of skin or hair). The question, however, is

whether Biblical Hebrew distinguished between "black" and

"dark" skin complexion. The evidence in the Bible is scanty (as the

above references show) and not clear. In my opinion, it is possible

that li§6r in Biblical Hebrew can mean both "black" and "dark" .8 8It is interesting that when Jer. xiii 23 rhetorically asks: "Can the

Ethiopian change his skin?", he does not opt to use the word

sahor. Certainly, it is possible that Jeremiah actually referred to an

Ethiopian or Nubian, but it is equally possible, on the other hand,that the word kicsi had so developed that in the times of Jeremiahit referred to the colour of a person's skin (i.e. black) rather than

to his race or nation. Arabic distinguishes between

("black") and 'asmar (" dark brown, dark") in reference to skincomplexion.9 While I am familiar, at first hand, with a number of

Arabic love-songs that celebrate lovers who are dark ('asmar), I do

not know of any songs that sing of persons whose skin complexion

7 Pope cites the Song v 11cin support of the black complexion of the lady. Note,however, that the NEB considers v 11can addition and puts the translation in afootnote.

8Pope (p. 307) criticizes the RSV and other translators and commentators who,he thinks, seek to "mitigate" or "modify the blackness" of the lady

("melainophobia", as he calls it). Some of his criticism may be justifiable. How-ever, he is assuming that the word Š hôrin Biblical Hebrew meant English"black" in all instances. Basing his argument on the poetic description in the Songv 10 and in Lam. iv 7-8, Pope concludes that "beauty and health" equals"whiteness and ruddiness", and that this equation obtains in an environment"where ruddy/white is the normal skin color". Yet if one judges from the present-day complexion of Near Eastern peoples, it is difficult to see how "ruddy/white"could have been "the normal" skin colour in ancient Palestine (even if we allowfor the possibility that in those days Palestinian skin complexion was lighter in col-

our). It is of course true that in the Bible white colour can signify purity andbeauty (e.g. Isa. i 18; Lam. iv 7) and that white skin complexion is generallydesirable. But this is so precisely because white complexion is not the normal orgeneral phenomenon in the Near East, certainly not in Palestine.

9 For my treatment of the word smr in the first combination of the Deir 'Allaplaster texts see PEQ 117 (1985), pp. 102-3, and Ugarit-Forschungen17 (1985), pp.283-309.



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is black easwad).10 It is of course not inconceivable that the lady in

the Song was "black but beautiful", as some scholars would insist.

However, it is important to note that in the cultural and a literarymilieu of the Near East in modern times-and presumably in

ancient times-a black complexion (to make a generalization) can-

not be so beautiful that it inspires love songs, certainly not a literary

masterpiece like the Song of Songs. I therefore think it likely that

the lady in the Song was "dark" and not "black" of complexion.It should be remembered at this point that the issue is not mere

dark complexion but dark beauty. ll

The dark lady of the Song brings to mind Shakespeare's darklady celebrated in his sonnets and, of course, that Egyptian queen,

Cleopatra, as portrayed by him.12 But this is not the place to dwell

on Shakespeare's creations. In the Song the lady's explanation (i

6):

Do not gaze at me because I am swarthybecause the sun has scorched me (RSV)

is best interpreted (in view of the reasons given in this article so far)to mean that her skin complexion was not black but that it was toa great extent the result of too much exposure to the sun.l3 As

already alluded to earlier, words from the root are used in Jobxxx 30 and Lam. iv 8 in reference to skin burnt or scorched by the

sun. The reference in these biblical books as well as in Song i 6 is

clearly not to black or negroid skin complexion. An added argu-ment in favour of this conclusion is vi 10:

10 Note however that in some of the songs the black eyes of the dark beauty arealso extolled.

11Cf. Lord Byron's poem "She walks in beauty, like the night".12Cleopatra VII (69-30 B.C.E.). Shakespeare's portrayal of her leaves no

doubt as to her beauty and personality. Could she, too, have had a dark skin com-plexion ?J. A. Wilson has this to say of the ancient Egyptians: "In physical typethe ancient Egyptian belonged to the slight, brunet family which is called theMediterranean race" (IDB II [Nashville, 1962], p. 42). On the small negroid com-ponent in the Egyptian population, see Jean Hiernaux, ThePeopleof Africa(Lon-

don, 1974), pp.48-9.

13The phrase k'hly qdr "Like the tents of ("edar" (Song i 5) has been cited byvarious scholars in support of the negroid complexion of the lady. The simile isa hyperbole and indicates nothing more than that the lady is darker than thedaughters of Jerusalem whom she is addressing. Note also that the simile is notin reference only to Š hôrâ,but to the complete phrase Šhrh'ny wn'wh, i.e., the ladyis dark and beautiful, like the tents of Qedar.



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Who is this that looks forth like the dawn,fair as the moon, bright as the sun... ?

Dawn is made of half light and half darkness and the word

links with .se?eoraand fébarbõret earlier in the Song.To conclude, the Song of Songs sings of true, transcendent love,

of two loving spirits, and the intense descriptions of physical beautyare but human attempts at depicting the ideal.

king solomon and the dark lady in the song of songs

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