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Pattern in the Song of Songs

One of the earliest commentaries on the Song of Songs is the series of notations in the LXX margin assigning the verses to bride, bridegroom, or companions. Though several modern translations and commentaries continue such designation, its development into the interpretation of the Song as drama has fallen into as much disfavor as have the detailed allegorical applications of the rabbis and church fathers. Much recent treatment, taking the book to be a more or less random collection of love lyrics (wedding, personal, and/or cultic), has concentrated almost wholly on the interpretation of the individual songs /1 /. The discussion here will consider a possible framework or macro-structure for the book. Order is sought on the basis of rhetorical patterns well attested in the Hebrew scriptures /2/. The two which have appeared most applicable are the tendency to arrange units in balanced pairs (in this case, in the chiastic form ABCBA) and the use of ring constructions to designate or set apart the units /3/. The result is not a drama, but the assignment of songs to bride and groom or to youth and maiden does play a central role in the balanced structure of the book. Titles or subject descriptions of the various units will reflect