The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

Jane Austen
(A Biography)

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Bible - OT - Song of Songs: Typological consciousness?

The Song portrays the longing of the bride for her lover, the king, Solomon.  There is an advent scene in 3:6-11, but this Solomon is elusive.  Even at the end of the Song, the bride is still urging the lover to hurry up and come to her.  A once and future Solomon, an already-not yet Solomon.

Now, could Solomon himself have written this?  It seems odd that a man could have written about himself in this fashion.  Can you say “hubris”?

But, consider:

1. Yahweh promised David to set David’s son on his throne after him, and promised too that this son would be the son of Yahweh.  Solomon is that son, to be sure, but the promises to David are pretty expansive.  “This is the charter of humanity” is how one scholar translates 2 Samuel 7:19.

2. Solomon comes along, accomplishes a lot, builds the house for Yahweh’s name, is Yahweh’s beloved, His son.  But Solomon is aware of his limits, as Ecclesiastes 2 shows.  He knows that his achievements are vapor, and that must mean that he realizes that he doesn’t measure up to all that Yahweh promised David.  He might naturally come to the realization that, for all his greatness, he is only a pale shadow of another Son of Yahweh, another Son of David, yet to come.  Solomon thus writes of Israel’s longing for a new and better Solomon.

3. Hubris? No; rather humility.  Solomon’s typological consciousness – his consciousness of himself not as the final realization of the Davidic covenant but only as a sign of a future realization – is a realization of his limits and failures.