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YHWH’s Flame: A Love Metaphor in the Song of Songs
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The Song of Songs, a collection of poems expressing the erotic love between a man and a woman, is beloved for the beauty of both its poetry and its content.[1] The artistry of the Song is widely recognized,[2] and yet its various philological problems, including several hapax legomena—words that only occur once in the Bible and are therefore difficult to understand—leave many verbal flourishes unclear.[3] In the Middle Ages, Saadia Gaon, the Egyptian-Babylonian Jewish philosopher and polemicist, quite appropriately compared the poem to “a lock whose key has been lost.”[4]
Shalhevetyah—What Does It Mean?
One of the Song’s hapax legomena is the word שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה:
שיר השירים ח:ו שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה.
Song 8:6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, shalhevetyah.
The morphology and basic meaning of the word is clear:
ל.ה.ב—This verbal root means “to blaze,” and the noun form “flame or blade.”
שׁ š-prefix—This is a causative שׁפעל form borrowed from Aramaic (which borrowed it from Akkadian),[5] parallel to the Hebrew הפעיל, and thus “something that causes a blaze,” i.e., a flame.[6]
ת tav—This ending is a sign that the word is grammatically feminine and in the construct state, so “flame of…”
יה “yah”—This final element is a common, shortened form of י־הוה. Its use here has generally been explained in one of two ways:
1. Flame of YHWH—The term יָהּ (Yah), on its own, is an abbreviation of the tetragrammaton “YHWH.” Thus the term can mean something like “flame of YHWH” or “divine/God-like flame.” According to some scholars, the manuscripts which separate the two words with a meteg, שלהבת־יה, supports this translation.[7]
2. Raging Flame—yah, as a shortened divine name, could also be a word ending that functions as an intensifier.[8] Think of the English phrase “God-awful.” Other Hebrew lexemes, in which the ending יה is commonly regarded as emphatic, are מַאְפֵּלְיָה, “thick darkness” (Jer 2:31) and מֶרְחָב יָהּ, “broad place” (Ps 118:5).[9] The lack of any other mention of YHWH in the Song supports this reading.
If Yah here really is a reference to YHWH, does this mean that the poem—this specific one or the book in general—should be read as relating to God?
Evidence for the Allegory Theory?
For many centuries, most Jews and Christians have read the Song as a poem about the love relationship between YHWH/Christ on one hand, and Israel/the Church/the soul/Mary, on the other.[10] The vast majority of modern scholars, however, interpret the Song as referring to human love.
Yet, the allegorical reading of the Song has continued to attract followers, however few, throughout the entire 20th and even in the 21st century.[11] These scholars argue that the Song was written as an allegorical poem, in line with the longstanding biblical tradition of using human love as an image of divine love.[12] Some have even pointed to Song 8:6 as sign of its original allegorical/symbolic nature.[13] Nevertheless, I do not think that translating שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה as “flame of YHWH” supports an allegorical reading.[14]
Ancient Witnesses
The Greek translation (LXX), dated between the 1st century B.C.E. and the 1st century C.E.,[15] saw no reference to YHWH in the term, and renders as “its flames” (lit. “her flames,” φλόγες αὐτῆς),[16] i.e., the flames of love (perhaps reading it as שׁלהבתוה, with yod/waw confusion).[17] Assuming that the Song is a late biblical book,[18] dating from the Hellenistic period, LXX Song has significant bearing on any attempt to determine how the multilingual Jewish readers would have understood the term.[19]
The Syriac Peshitta (2nd cent. C.E.) renders the Hebrew word in an Aramaic form, and adds a conjunctive “and” before the word, making it a hendiadys the previous word. In other words, it renders אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה “fire, flame” as נורא ושלהביתא (ܢܘܪܐ݂ ܘܫܠܗܒܝܬܐ) “fire and flame.” Whether or not this was in the translators Vorlage (original Hebrew) is unclear, but the Vetus Latina translates this way as well ignis et flammae, as does the Latin Vulgate, ignis atque flammarum.
It is striking that none of the ancient translators rendered the word as “the flame of Yah,” especially given that allegorical readings of the entire Hebrew Bible were becoming increasingly popular in the period between the 1st cent. B.C.E. and the 3rd cent. C.E.
One Swallow Does Not Make a Summer
The literal meaning of the Hebrew expression שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה in Song 8:6 is not self-evident but even if the word contains an explicit reference to YHWH, this would be inadequate evidence to suggest that the whole Song is an allegory. Biblical allegories often have a political/polemical intent,[20] and biblical passages that function allegorically have clear hints suggesting their allegorical interpretation.[21] For example, after Isaiah relates his parable of the vineyard in ch. 5, he notes:
ישעיה ה:ז כִּי כֶרֶם יְ־הוָה צְבָאוֹת בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאִישׁ יְהוּדָה נְטַע שַׁעֲשׁוּעָיו...
Isa 5:7 For the vineyard of YHWH of Hosts is the House of Israel, and the seedlings he lovingly tended are the men of Judah…
Similarly, after the long account of Hosea marrying an unfaithful woman, we read:
הושע ג:א וַיֹּאמֶר יְ־הוָה אֵלַי עוֹד לֵךְ אֱהַב אִשָּׁה אֲהֻבַת רֵעַ וּמְנָאָפֶת כְּאַהֲבַת יְ־הוָה אֶת בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְהֵם פֹּנִים אֶל אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים וְאֹהֲבֵי אֲשִׁישֵׁי עֲנָבִים.
Hos 3:1 YHWH said to me again, “Go, love a woman who has a lover and is an adulteress, just as YHWH loves the people of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love raisin cakes.”
Song of Songs does not share with biblical allegories these two important characteristics.
Especially When It Is Not a Swallow
Even if we translate the term שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה as “flame of Yah,” we do not necessarily need to interpret the entire poem in relation to YHWH. In this case, YHWH’s name is evoked specifically and only as part of a metaphor about love.
Love as a Warlike Deity
Several expressions in the verse evoke a mythological scenario of combat involving some ancient Near Eastern warlike gods.
שיר השירים ח:ו שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל לִבֶּךָ כַּחוֹתָם עַל זְרוֹעֶךָ כִּי עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה רְשָׁפֶיהָ רִשְׁפֵּי אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה.
Song 8:6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, flame of Yah.
Mavet (death) and Sheʿol (grave/underworld) closely recall the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, in which the god Baal is said to be as strong as the god Mot/Death and descends into the underworld to defeat him.[22] Aren M. Wilson-Wright recently argued (convincingly to my mind) that the expression “strong as death” is a formula of a Northwest Semitic combat myth.[23]
Furthermore, resheph, often rendered as “flash,” is also the Hebrew name for a bellicose Canaanite god, Resheph, well-known in the Mediterranean as a deity connected with death.[24] Thus, the expression “its flashes are flashes of fire,” also has a mythological character.[25]
YHWH’s Fiery Jealousy
YHWH is also connected with the lexemes קנא, “jealousy/passion” and אש, “fire”:
דברים ד:כד כִּי יְ־הוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ אֵשׁ אֹכְלָה הוּא אֵל קַנָּא.
Deut 4:24 For YHWH your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
Biblical texts often portray YHWH as fighting with fire, thunder, and lightning.[26] In two cases, the verses actually use the root ל.ה.ב:
ישעיה ל:ל וְהִשְׁמִיעַ יְ־הוָה אֶת הוֹד קוֹלוֹ וְנַחַת זְרוֹעוֹ יַרְאֶה בְּזַעַף אַף וְלַהַב אֵשׁ אוֹכֵלָה נֶפֶץ וָזֶרֶם וְאֶבֶן בָּרָד.
Isa 30:30 And YHWH will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones.
תהלים כט:ז קוֹל יְ־הוָה חֹצֵב לַהֲבוֹת אֵשׁ.
Ps 29:7 The voice of YHWH flashes forth flames of fire.
The lexical proximity between these two texts and Song 8:6 is apparent. The mythological imagery continues in the next verse:
שיר השירים ח:ז מַיִם רַבִּים לֹא יוּכְלוּ לְכַבּוֹת אֶת הָאַהֲבָה וּנְהָרוֹת לֹא יִשְׁטְפוּהָ...
Song 8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it….
While “many waters” might simply refer to abundant waters,[27] the term can evoke YHWH’s mythological enemies.[28] The combination of Hebrew lexemes for floods here is paralleled only in contexts of war between YHWH and his aqueous enemies.[29]
In sum, Song 8:6–7 employs several mythological motifs belonging to ancient Near Eastern literature, Baal, Mot, Sheol, Resheph, as well as the Hebrew Bible’s bellicose YHWH. At the same time, the text does not mean to evoke any one of the deities. Instead, the text is using this broad ancient Near Eastern imagery to say that love is akin to a godlike warrior, or a warlike god with respect to strength and vehemence or fierceness, which are mentioned in v. 6.[30] This fits perfectly with the military language that the Song elsewhere employs to represent the lovers and their courtship.[31]
It’s about Love Not YHWH
In other words, regardless of how we translate שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה (raging flame or flame of Yah), this lexeme expresses the metaphor “Love is YHWH’s flame,” which the ancient translators may not have recognized or may have decided to leave implicit, as it is implicit in the Hebrew. Song 8:6 attributes some of the characteristics of the flame of YHWH (source) to human love (target), exactly as, for example, the metaphor “Achilles is a lion” is about Achilles and not lions, “time is money,” is about time and not money, and “love is a battlefield,” is about love and not battle.
This is entirely different than allegorical writing. Whereas allegory speaks of A but intends B, metaphor speaks of A in light of B. All we can say is that Song 8:6 depicts the love between man and woman in light of how ancient Israel conceptualized the divine, including YHWH, namely as raging, vehement, unstoppable, and fierce.[32] But this does not make the Song as a whole into a book about YHWH.
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Published
March 26, 2023
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Last Updated
November 22, 2024
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Footnotes
Dr. Danilo Verde is a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher of the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) affiliated to the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven. He holds a Ph.D. in biblical studies from the same University. His research focuses on metaphor, gender, trauma, and pain in the Hebrew Bible. Verde is the author of Conquered Conquerors: Love and War in the Song of Songs (SBL 2020), and co-editor (with Antje Labahn) of Networks of Metaphors in the Hebrew Bible (Peeters, 2020), and a thematic issue of the journal Open Theology (with Dominik Markl) titled Cultural Trauma and the Hebrew Bible (2022).
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