Opening: The Malbim's Grand Allegory
In this lesson, we continue with the Malbim's introduction to Shir HaShirim. The Malbim divided his commentary into two parts: the mashal (allegory) and the melitzah (figurative meaning). The mashal is the outer narrative told by the poem, and the melitzah is the solution to the riddle: what lies behind the allegory, who the protagonists truly are, and what is actually taking place. First, we will examine the conceptual imagery the Malbim constructs, then the story of the mashal, then the solution of the melitzah, and finally the division of the poem into five songs, along with an additional short song at its conclusion.
Jerusalem and Zion - The Body and Its Faculties
In his melitzah, the Malbim compares the "House of Solomon" - meaning man's physical body and its host of faculties - to the city of a great king, and that city is referred to in the song by the names of Zion and Jerusalem. As we noted at the outset: man possesses many faculties, all of which are physical, for when a person dies, all of these faculties perish with him. Thus, when the song speaks of Jerusalem and Zion, it is speaking of the body - the body and its faculties.
Indeed, this very allegory was already used by Shlomo in the book of Kohelet: "There was a little city, with few men in it." Chazal expounded: "A little city" - this is the body; "with few men in it" - these are the limbs. "And a great king came against it and besieged it" - Chazal explained that this is the yetzer hara (the evil inclination).
Who, then, is the power ruling the city? The driving desire, the inclination that governs the physical frame, whose bidding all the body's forces obey, is called by the song "King Solomon." Note well: we are not yet speaking of the soul at all, but of the ruling force within the body, which leads this city - Solomon's physical body - reigning over it with great majesty and ruling with mighty dominion, like Solomon's kingdom in Jerusalem. And the power ruling the body is, by its very nature, allied with the forces of evil, since the body is drawn after desires; this is not the soul, but the material, physical dimension. This is that same "great king" who came against the city and besieged it: he controls the lustful forces of the body, and he directs the person's life according to them.
The Daughters of Jerusalem - The Bodily Faculties Dependent on Matter
The song also designates the various psychological and physical faculties dependent on matter as the "daughters of Zion" or the "daughters of Jerusalem." As we explained, there are primary faculties and secondary, subordinate ones dependent upon them. There is a core: heart, lungs, liver, kidneys; and by contrast, less vital organs - hands, feet, ears, eyes, mouth; a person can survive without them. But without a heart, one cannot live. (True, there are those who seem to live without a heart today - you can see this especially in the Knesset and in various other places - but fundamentally, living without a heart is impossible.) In any case, if the city is the body, then the "daughters of Zion" are the forces residing within that city.
These are Solomon's wives and concubines, serving to fulfill his desires and passions for all worldly pleasures; they are his maidservants and handmaidens, and from them he takes perfumers, cooks, and bakers - corresponding to the nutritive faculty, the growth faculty, the reproductive faculty, and the rest of the physical body's various capacities. The nutritive faculty: what a person eats, the stomach digests, nourishing the entire body. The growth faculty: the force through which the body develops. The reproductive faculty: the power through which the preservation of the species and the next generation are ensured. All of these - Solomon's wives, his concubines, the daughters of Jerusalem - are the faculties of the body, whose sole function is to provide for its pleasures, desires, and passions.
The Allegory: The Beloved, the King, and the Shepherd
"And he took up his parable and said": Among the multitude of women Solomon had, his soul desired one maiden, the fairest of women, who was betrothed and wed to a shepherd in the wilderness. A king may breach any fence and none may protest, and so the beloved maiden was taken against her will from the embrace of her beloved shepherd to King Solomon, into his royal palace. There he placed a royal crown upon her head and gave her gifts fit for royalty - honoring her lavishly, in a manner reminiscent of Achashverosh. Moreover, he appointed guards over her, the daughters of Jerusalem who surrounded her, watching her every step lest she flee to the wilderness to her beloved. Notice: the daughters of Jerusalem are the king's forces, tasked with ensuring that the maiden does not escape.
But in vain does the watchman keep vigil. Her heart was not seduced by Solomon's desire; her soul loathed his love - recoiling from it in disgust - and rejected the royal delicacies and the wine of his banquets. The feasts, the wines, the physical indulgence - none of this appealed to her, for her soul yearned and even pined for the champion of her youth, who grazes his flock among the lilies. He, too, remembered the love of her bridal days: day after day he would pace before the courtyard of the harem where his bride was held captive, peering through the windows, speaking to her from behind the walls and through the lattices; and she poured out her heart to him, pleading that he liberate her soul from prison. They set their secret signs - establishing a signal between them for how she would escape, and where she would find him upon the rugged mountains (Harei Bater).
And so, she fled several times from the king's palace to the wilderness where he encamped. Yet each time, the watchful daughters of Jerusalem pursued her and brought her back in fury - in anger - to the chambers of Solomon. Until, in the end of days, she girded her loins with strength, shattered doors of bronze, broke through enclosures, unlocked the fetters, severed bonds, and went forth with a high hand, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, to her beloved, the gazelle upon the mountains of spices. This is the essence of the parable.
The Allegory: The Solution to the Riddle
"And its figurative speech poses riddles, and this is its solution," says the Malbim. The fairest among women, whom Solomon desired and brought into the king's palace, is his spiritual, Divine soul, which descended from the heights of heaven to dwell in Solomon's lowly house, as the verse says, "to dwell in thick darkness." The maiden is the soul, confined against her will in Solomon's palace - that is to say, within his body.
And the beloved who shepherds the flock, to whom she was betrothed, is her Supreme Beloved, the Shepherd of heavenly hosts, their Leader, who sits in the heavens of old and dwells in the celestial expanses. And as for the king imprisoning her in his royal house and enticing her with his love - this is the appetitive faculty that rules over the body, striving to dominate the spirit, to profane the holy spirit in an "alliance of fleshly love." In other words: Solomon in the parable, representing the physical aspect, attempts to draw the soul, the spiritual aspect, toward pleasures, toward materiality, toward bodily delights.
And he strives to draw the Divine soul, along with the maidens, her companions who follow her, toward his will, to subdue the queen with him in the house, to be his consort and attendant, fulfilling his desires and passions - whether in governing the kingdom, or in amassing wealth and riches and all of Solomon's desires. Here it is important not to become confused: "her companions" and the "maidens" in the Song are the faculties of the soul - wisdom, understanding, knowledge, the intellectual powers; whereas the "daughters of Jerusalem" are Solomon's forces, the bodily powers, which constantly intervene to bring the soul back whenever she attempts to escape.
And that he stationed the daughters of Jerusalem as guards around her means that the daughters of the body - its faculties - surround her and hold fast to her, lest she divest herself of materiality, lest she shed the shoes of physical matter from her feet, and lest she take wing to soar on the pinions of purity and holiness toward spirituality, toward her Beloved in heaven. The soul yearns and longs for the Holy One, blessed be He, for the Throne of Glory, while the bodily faculties imprison her and pull her back down to earthliness, to worldly desires and all of Solomon's pursuits.
And that the parable describes how the maiden's soul yearned intensely for the shepherd, the champion of her youth, and "as a bridegroom dons a priestly diadem, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels" - this means that Solomon's soul despised material desires and lusts, refusing to defile herself by straying after the ruler of the body, which is the appetitive faculty and the impulses of its deeds. Instead, she was aroused at all times with tremendous longing for her Beloved, Hashem, the portion of her inheritance and cup, strengthening her arms in deep study and in deed to walk in His ways and cleave to Him.
And as for the parable's depiction of her beloved sending her his words from behind the wall and the door, through windows and lattices - this is because the Supreme Beloved also yearns for her, desiring to pour out His holy spirit upon her and enlighten her in His truth. He sends her the words of His providence through the wall, which is physical matter acting as a barrier between her and the Holy of Holies, and peers at her through the windows and crevices of the soul, to elevate her from the depths of material illusions and the darkness of physical matter - from corporeality and worldly substance - to holiness and the holy spirit, and to bring her out of the valley of trouble into an opening of hope.
And that the parable depicts her fleeing several times from the king's palace to her beloved in the wilderness means that through the striving, longing, and preparation of Solomon's soul for Divine cleaving (and Solomon, as is known, was a profoundly spiritual man, of whom it is said, "and Hashem loved him"), the spirit rested upon her and she cleaved to the splendor of holiness, meriting prophecy and the word of Hashem multiple times. At such times, she "fled" Solomon's palace - meaning that she stripped away corporeality, and the cloud and thick darkness departed from her.
And as for the parable's account that each time the daughters of Jerusalem pursued her and brought her back to the king's palace - this is because the shackles of the body were not yet completely dissolved; the ropes binding her were not entirely loosed, and therefore this cleaving could not endure for long. Once the Divine spirit rested upon her, the daughters of Jerusalem, the forces of physical matter, reawakened and disrupted this cleaving: "And Hashem departed when He had finished speaking with Solomon," and his soul returned to its place, imprisoned once again under the confines of physical matter as before.
And as for the parable's statement that in the end of days she went forth with a high hand from Solomon's house and never returned to it again, but cleaved to her Beloved and He betrothed her to Himself forever - this means that when Solomon was gathered to his people and slept with his fathers, the bonds were dissolved and the shackles melted away. The snare broke, and his soul escaped to her God, the husband of her youth: "And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it," to cleave to the bond of life, eternal life, and everlasting bliss. This was the final time, when she separated completely and the forces of the body could never imprison her again.
Five Songs - and Five Escapes
The Malbim explains: when we divide this holy song into its sections and examine its parts, we find that it is divided into five parts - five songs. In each and every song, it is related that the maiden fled from the king's chambers into the desert, meaning that she fled five times. In the first four instances, she was returned from the desert to the king's palace, but in the fifth, she went out and returned no more, remaining with her Beloved. The allegory here is that the Holy One, Blessed be He, appeared to Shlomo and spoke with him four times. This hints at how the spiritual soul departs and cleaves to its Beloved, and once the speech and the vision conclude, the bodily forces - the "daughters of Jerusalem" - return and overpower the soul, which can no longer depart.
An important side note: in our printed editions, Shir HaShirim is divided into eight chapters, whereas the Malbim divides it into five. There is no contradiction here, as the division into chapters is of Christian origin and holds no intrinsic significance in Judaism. In the history of Jewish thought, you will not find references to Tanach chapters, for there were originally no chapters; following the disputations of the Ramban and subsequent sages with the Christians, their chapter divisions entered our texts as well. There is also a traditional Hebrew division, but it is less common and rarely used today.
The First Song: Giv'on
The verse "The Song of Songs, which is Shlomo's" is merely an opening; the song itself begins with the following verse:
יִשָּׁקֵנִי מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת פִּיהוּ כִּי טוֹבִים דֹּדֶיךָ מִיָּיִן׃ (א, ב) - "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine." (1:2)
The first song continues until the end of chapter 2:
הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם בִּצְבָאוֹת אוֹ בְּאַיְלוֹת הַשָּׂדֶה אִם תָּעִירוּ וְאִם תְּעוֹרְרוּ אֶת הָאַהֲבָה עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּץ׃ (ב, ז) - "I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, that you not awaken or arouse love until it pleases." (2:7)
In this section, the maiden is described longing for her Beloved; the Beloved stands behind the wall, and she asks him to tell her where he grazes his flock. Afterward, she flees out to the desert and unites with him: "and his banner over me is love," "his left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me." Eventually, she sees the daughters of Jerusalem pursuing her to bring her back, whereupon she adjures them neither to awaken nor arouse - not to disrupt the love. Ultimately, the connection ceases, and she returns to the palace.
And what does this section correspond to? It corresponds to what is recounted in I Kings 3: Shlomo went to Giv'on and offered a thousand burnt offerings there, and Hashem appeared to him in a dream and said to him, "Ask what I shall give you." Shlomo asked for an understanding heart to judge and to discern between good and evil, and the Holy One, Blessed be He, granted his request far beyond what he had asked. This is expressed in the allegory: Shlomo's soul yearned for the Beloved by offering burnt offerings, and merited that wondrous communion - the Shepherd meeting the maiden, which is the Holy One, Blessed be He, meeting Shlomo's soul, which is the vision of prophecy. And then, "and Shlomo awoke" - the bodily forces, the daughters of Jerusalem, drew the soul back from the vision and returned it to the body.
The Second Song: A Minor Revelation during the Building of the Temple
קוֹל דּוֹדִי הִנֵּה זֶה בָּא מְדַלֵּג עַל הֶהָרִים מְקַפֵּץ עַל הַגְּבָעוֹת׃ (ב, ח) - "The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, skipping over the hills." (2:8)
The second song begins here and ends at the close of chapter 2:
עַד שֶׁיָּפוּחַ הַיּוֹם וְנָסוּ הַצְּלָלִים סֹב דְּמֵה לְךָ דוֹדִי לִצְבִי אוֹ לְעֹפֶר הָאַיָּלִים עַל הָרֵי בָתֶר׃ (ב, יז) - "Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether." (2:17)
Here it is the Beloved who comes seeking the maiden, but she is hidden and confined, and therefore the speech is sparse and intermittent. This depicts the second encounter of Shlomo with the Holy One, Blessed be He, in I Kings chapter 6, when he began building the Temple and Hashem appeared to him and said: "Concerning this House which you are building, if you walk in My statutes..." and so forth. Notice that here the awakening does not originate from Shlomo, but from Hashem; this is why the Beloved is the one who turns to the maiden.
Indeed, this was not a complete prophetic revelation, which is why it says there, "And the word of Hashem came to Shlomo" - a lower level, neither a vision nor an apparition. From this we can understand why at the third vision it says, "Hashem appeared to Shlomo a second time, as He had appeared to him in Giv'on": after all, there was an intervening vision between them! But that one was not counted because it was a minor revelation, whereas the revelation at Giv'on and the revelation in Kings chapter 9 were grand visions. For this reason, the second song does not mention the daughters of Jerusalem pursuing her, since her emergence was momentary and fleeting, and the Beloved departed of his own accord - "and the shadows flee."
The Third Song: The Dedication of the Temple
עַל מִשְׁכָּבִי בַּלֵּילוֹת בִּקַּשְׁתִּי אֵת שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי בִּקַּשְׁתִּיו וְלֹא מְצָאתִיו׃ (ג, א) - "Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him." (3:1)
The third song begins in chapter 3 and concludes in chapter 5:
בָּאתִי לְגַנִּי אֲחֹתִי כַלָּה אָרִיתִי מוֹרִי עִם בְּשָׂמִי אָכַלְתִּי יַעְרִי עִם דִּבְשִׁי שָׁתִיתִי יֵינִי עִם חֲלָבִי אִכְלוּ רֵעִים שְׁתוּ וְשִׁכְרוּ דּוֹדִים׃ (ה, א) - "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends; drink, and become intoxicated with love!" (5:1)
Here the maiden seeks her beloved upon her bed at night and does not find him, until she goes out of the city and brings him into the house. Then the daughters of Jerusalem pursue her, and she flees from Shlomo's bed and unites with her beloved. The bond here is exceptionally powerful, and the Beloved addresses the maiden with all manner of expressions of affection.
When did this occur? When Shlomo finished the Temple and dedicated it, kneeling upon his knees and offering a long, wondrous prayer, and offering burnt-offerings and sacrifices there. This is the maiden's longing: "Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves" - the soul seeks connection with the Holy One, Blessed be He. Then Hashem appeared to Shlomo, this time in full prophetic revelation just as at Giv'on, and said to him: "I have heard your prayer..." and so forth. This is the tremendous union depicted in the song: "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey" - an expression of the acceptance of the prayer, the acceptance of the sacrifices, and the fulfillment of Shlomo's request. And once again the daughters of Jerusalem separate them, and she returns to the palace.
The Fourth Song: The Rebuke
אֲנִי יְשֵׁנָה וְלִבִּי עֵר קוֹל דּוֹדִי דוֹפֵק פִּתְחִי לִי אֲחֹתִי רַעְיָתִי יוֹנָתִי תַמָּתִי שֶׁרֹּאשִׁי נִמְלָא טָל קְוֻצּוֹתַי רְסִיסֵי לָיְלָה׃ (ה, ב) - "I sleep, but my heart is awake; the voice of my beloved knocks: 'Open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled one, for my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.'" (5:2)
The fourth song begins here and concludes at the end of the chapter:
חִכּוֹ מַמְתַקִּים וְכֻלּוֹ מַחֲמַדִּים זֶה דוֹדִי וְזֶה רֵעִי בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם׃ (ה, טז) - "His mouth is sweetness itself, and he is entirely delightful. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem" (5:16).
This section describes the period following the building of the Temple. Shlomo married Pharaoh's daughter, and from that point the spiritual decline began. The maiden - the holy soul - as it were fell asleep in Shlomo's bedchambers: "I sleep", and forgot her Beloved and the guide of her youth. Until one night, "The voice of my beloved knocks", pleading: Come, soul of Shlomo, awaken once more. He knocks and waits in vain, and when she finally rises to open to her beloved, "my beloved had turned and was gone", and she could no longer find Him. She then tells the daughters of Jerusalem that she is lovesick, and describes to them the greatness of her Beloved, His appearance, and His attire.
This was the era of the foreign wives, when Shlomo's heart was swayed away from Hashem. Then the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "Because you have done this, and have not kept My covenant and My statutes... I will surely tear the kingdom away from you", and it is stated there, "And Hashem was angry with Shlomo." This too was an encounter, but an unpleasant one: the maiden connects with the Beloved to receive a rebuke, rather than in the loving bond of "this is my beloved and this is my friend" that existed after the building of the Temple. Therefore the Beloved, as it were, flees - "my beloved had turned and was gone." She resolves in her heart to seek out the Beloved anew and repent until she merits Divine attachment, yet Hashem remains distant, and his soul did not fully detach from the material realm toward the spiritual until the time of his passing.
The Fifth Song: The Departure with No Return
אָנָה הָלַךְ דּוֹדֵךְ הַיָּפָה בַּנָּשִׁים אָנָה פָּנָה דוֹדֵךְ וּנְבַקְשֶׁנּוּ עִמָּךְ׃ (ו, א) - "Where has your beloved gone, O fairest of women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?" (6:1).
The fifth song begins here and concludes in chapter 8:
מַיִם רַבִּים לֹא יוּכְלוּ לְכַבּוֹת אֶת הָאַהֲבָה וּנְהָרוֹת לֹא יִשְׁטְפוּהָ אִם יִתֵּן אִישׁ אֶת כָּל הוֹן בֵּיתוֹ בָּאַהֲבָה בּוֹז יָבוּזוּ לוֹ׃ (ח, ז) - "Many waters cannot extinguish the love, nor can rivers wash it away; if a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, they would utterly scorn him" (8:7).
Here the Beloved is described coming to His bride, and the bride's soul cleaves to Him, leaving Shlomo's chambers and his palace and going out into the wilderness with a high hand. Neither King Shlomo nor the daughters of Jerusalem could stop her, for at the time of death the soul departs the body and nothing can hold it back, "for love is as fierce as death." She then says to the daughters:
הִשְׁבַּעְתִּי אֶתְכֶם בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם מַה תָּעִירוּ וּמַה תְּעֹרְרוּ אֶת הָאַהֲבָה עַד שֶׁתֶּחְפָּץ׃ (ח, ד) - "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, why should you awaken and why should you stir up love until it pleases?" (8:4).
That is to say: it is no longer within your power to extinguish this love or undermine it. Then death separated them, and she returned to her God, and in the words of the Malbim: "The physical forces will no longer disturb her, for she abides in the shadow of the Almighty." And here, the Malbim adds, Shlomo describes wondrous things in the book concerning the state of the soul at the moment of expiration and after death, as will be explained in the commentary on the verses.
The Song of the Thousand
Following these five songs, which express five occasions when Shlomo's soul detached from the physical and connected with her Beloved, a short song is appended:
אָחוֹת לָנוּ קְטַנָּה וְשָׁדַיִם אֵין לָהּ מַה נַּעֲשֶׂה לַאֲחוֹתֵנוּ בַּיּוֹם שֶׁיְּדֻבַּר בָּהּ׃ (ח, ח) - "We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for?" (8:8)
From "We have a little sister" until the end of the book, this is the speech of the soul and its supplication on behalf of the spirit (ruach) bound to the body. There is a primal, hylic spirit (from the Greek term "hyle", prime matter), which serves as the intermediary between the body and the soul (neshamah). This song is said concerning it: the Ra'yah, who is the neshamah, the higher part, pleads on behalf of her little sister - the ruach connecting body and neshamah - "who has no breasts."
And this song is called the "Song of the Thousand", named after Shlomo's vineyard whose fruit yielded a thousand pieces of silver:
כֶּרֶם הָיָה לִשְׁלֹמֹה בְּבַעַל הָמוֹן נָתַן אֶת הַכֶּרֶם לַנֹּטְרִים אִישׁ יָבִא בְּפִרְיוֹ אֶלֶף כָּסֶף׃ (ח, יא) - "Shlomo had a vineyard in Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers, each was to bring a thousand pieces of silver for its fruit." (8:11)
From here the verse regarding Shlomo is explained: "And his songs were five and a thousand." Some understand that Shlomo composed one thousand and five songs, but the Malbim does not explain it this way (as was also explained when studying it in its place): "five and a thousand" means that this unique song is divided into five parts, plus one small song at its end - "The thousand are for you, Shlomo" - which is the Song of the Thousand. Five songs plus one song known as the Song of the Thousand.
Conclusion of the Introduction
Finally, the Malbim concludes his introduction with poetic prayer: "After the measuring line went forth and completed the measurements of the inner House, and went out through the gate facing eastward, and measured five cubits" - five songs - "with the measuring reed all around; before I enter the inner court and the Sanctuary before me, to You, Hashem, I pray: 'Send Your light and Your truth, let them guide me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain and to Your dwelling places. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your holy spirit from me.'" This concludes the introduction.
In Summary:
The Malbim opens the gates of Shir HaShirim for us: "Shlomo" in the allegory is the governing power within the body, Jerusalem and Zion are the body, and the daughters of Jerusalem are the physical forces guarding that the soul does not divest itself of materiality. The Ra'yah, the fairest of women, is the divine soul imprisoned within the body, and the shepherd Beloved is the Holy One, Blessed be He, to Whom she has been betrothed since the Six Days of Creation and for Whom she yearns. Five times the Ra'yah flees to her Beloved - corresponding to the four divine revelations granted to Shlomo and the departure of his soul at his passing - and four times the daughters of the body bring her back, until in the final instance she goes out with a high hand and returns no more. At the end, a small song is added, the Song of the Thousand, the soul's plea on behalf of its little sister, the spirit that binds body and soul. And this is the meaning of "his songs were five and a thousand."