Make Love and War

The first verses of Song of Songs 2 repeatedly return to military imagery.  The fact that there is a “battle standard” (2:4; cf. Numbers 1:52; 2:2, 3, 10, 17, 18, etc.) over the “house of wine” suggests that the feast is a victory feast as much as a love feast.  Perhaps, even, she’s something of a war bride, captured and enthralled to the king.  The odd oath of 2:7 plays on military language as well.  The strangeness of an oath “by the gazelles” is softened a bit when we see (as many commentators have pointed out) the pun between the plural of “gazelle” and the plural of “host,” as in “army host.  Plus, at least two swift warriors are compared to gazelles – Asahel (2 Samuel 2:18) and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:19).

The warning not to arouse love sounds like a shushing – don’t wake him up!  But the arousal is probably sexual; the verb means to incite, become hot, to be stirred up to action, and it’s used in military contexts (2 Samuel 23:18) to describe the raising of swords (!) and the boiling of battle wrath.   Don’t arouse love, the bride says, until he’s ready for conquest.