For Love Is Fierce As Death

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’ve skipped ahead in my reading to The Song of Songs. The title for this post is from chapter 8.

Let me be a seal upon your heart,

Like the seal upon your hand.

For love is fierce as death,

Passion is mighty as Sheol;

Its darts are darts of fire,

A blazing flame.

Vast floods cannot quench love,

Nor rivers drown it.

If a man offered all his wealth for love,

He would be laughed to scorn.

There are some really great lines, but more so, it is this great interweaving of cycles of absence and presence, longing and invitation.

My beloved spoke thus to me,

“Arise, my darling;

My fair one, come away!

For now the winter is past,

The rains are over and gone.

The blossoms have appeared in the land,

The time of pruning has come;

The song of the turtledove

Is heard in our land.

The green figs form on the fig tree,

The vines in blossom give off fragrance.

Arise, my darling;

My fair one, come away!”

~ by bart on February 14, 2008.