About the Author

Publisher's Description

Relationships are a wonderful, mysterious, often elusive, sometimes painful part of the human experience. The most intimate of all human relationships, according to the Bible, is that between a husband and a wife. It is no surprise, therefore, that there is a book of the Bible, the Song of Songs, that focuses on this relationship. What is surprising is how little attention is given to the Song of Songs by scholars, by the church, and by readers of the Bible. With this volume Tremper Longman III unpacks for modern people what this ancient love poem says about the male-female relationship — and, by analogy, about God's love for his people. Longman's superb study begins with a thorough introduction to the Song of Songs and its background. Longman discusses the book's title, authorship, date, literary style, language, structure, cultural milieu, and theological content. He also canvasses the long history of interpretation of the Song of Songs, a history too often characterized by repression of the text. In the commentary itself, Longman structures the Song of Songs according to its twenty-three poetic units and explains its message verse by verse. The exposition is made clearer by Longman's adoption of an anthropological approach to the text and by his frequent comparisons of the Song of Songs with other ancient Near Eastern literature.

Endorsement

This treatment of the Song of Songs is valuable for all readers. The book is thorough in exploring the Song and very well-written. It is technical when it needs to be, yet is highly readable due to excellent explanations. It refers to the Hebrew text when necessary, but provides the untrained reader with enough of an explanation to be understandable. Mr. Longman takes the approach that the Songis an anthology of love poetry. But he moves beyond the secular to deomonstrating clearly how the Song fits into the canon for Jews and Christians. The book is appropriately reverent while celebrating the God-given human love expressed so beautifully in the Song. People of faith will find the book valuable and others will find the scholarship excellent. If you want a highly readable commentary, with superior scholarship and an elucidating exploration of this bible book, this commentary will not let you down.