HEBREW WORD STUDY – JESUS LOVES ME – עלמת אחבוכ  

Song of Solomon 1:3:  “Therefore do the virgins love thee.”

We live in a scientific society where there is only one answer to 2+2 and therefore only one interpretation to Scripture.  We find our teachers who teach the interpretation we like and then just shut our minds to anything else and walk in lock step with our favorite teachers. Yet to say that the Song of Solomon has only one interpretation is to say that Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels or George Orwell’s Animal Farm are just simple children stories with no deeper meanings. Allegory or satire flows through all great literature in history, including the Bible.

Song of Solomon 1:3 is a very good example of multiple interpretations. Sure the virgins love Solomon, it fits the context. But something else also fits the context, if we see more than just a love story between Solomon and the Shulamite woman. Our strict scientific approach to the Bible and the Hebrew language will forbid us from seeing something very important in this verse. 

Take the phrase “Therefore do the virgins love thee…”  We find the Hebrew uses the word alamoth for virgin. The sages break this word down to ala moth?  This means but over death. So what is rendered in all our modern Christian translations as Therefore do the virgins love thee now becomes, according to the Jewish sages can also read: Therefore does the one who conqueror’s death love thee. So which rendering is correct?  Contextually, it would have to be rendered as virgin. Yet why would God not give us a double meaning like we find in other works of literature?  

So let’s say we have a deeper, secondary meaning which might talk about the One who conquerors death. I know of only one person who could make that rendering viable and that is, of course, Jesus Christ. Such word plays are found throughout the Old Testament. Even though someone might read George Orwell and see his deeper understanding and double meanings, we tend to balk at the idea that God happened to be a good writer and also uses double meanings.  

But say,  what is so bad about searching for a dual or multiple meaning for one’s own pleasure, like doing a crossword puzzle.  Maybe it is just a coincidence that there is this a secondary meaning behind the word alamoth which could be rendered ala moth giving a hidden, secret reference to Jesus.  But if it were not a coincidence then that would require the work of an absolute genius. Especially when the writer makes a reference to an event that has yet to take place. Could such a writer of such skill exist?  How about the greatest writer of all times – God.

Every time I run into one of these little play on words, secondary meanings or hidden meanings, I cannot help but think that when David penned the Psalms and was just about to use a certain word or letter the Holy Spirit whispered in David’s ear: “No use an Ayin rather than an Aleph because some Aspie name named Chaim Bentorah will be around in the 21^st Century and it will just drive him crazy.” 

So what do I conclude about Song of Solomon 1:3 which says the virgins love thee, but it also says: Therefore does the one who conqueror’s death love thee or in modern English: Jesus loves me this I know?  Putting it bluntly, I could care less whether the virgins loved Solomon or not. But I do care a great deal that the one who conquered death actually loves me. So for me personally, I am going to read it my way. I will read it my way, you read it your way, everybody happy.