07/18/2025 – Day 362 – Song of Songs – Chapters 7 & 8 /Chapter 8 – “Longing for Her Beloved” Verses 6 & 7 – In the midst of a heated attraction between lovers (on the surface anyway) , why the two verse detour to ‘death’? / Post 1 of 2 – Post 2 tomorrow with our last reading on the book of Revelation). Stay tuned.
“Set me a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.” (Song of Songs 8:6 – 8:7)
I am going to share another excerpt from Peter Kreeft’s book: “Three Philosophies of Life – Ecclesiastes: Life as Vanity / Job: Life as Suffering / Song of Songs: Life as Love.” – pg. 139:
“The fire is love. Love, like fire, destroys all its enemies, including the ‘the last enemy’ (1 Corinthians 15:26) , death.
At the point of death, a great battle is waged for the heavyweight championship of the universe: in this corner Death, and in that corner Love. But death cannot change love; love changes death. Love changes the meaning of death, but death does not change the meaning of love. When fire and water meet, one must die. ‘Love is strong as death’ (Song 8:6) because ‘many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it’. (Song 8:7). Death threatens love with extinction: ‘Love, thou shalt die.” But love replies, in triumph, in the concluding words of Donne’s great poem ‘Death, Be Not Proud’: ‘Death, thou shalt die.”…
(to be concluded tomorrow in our final reading of Revelation) – Pretty funny – a link of two verses in Song of Songs with six verses at the end of the Book of Revelation.
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Soli Deo Gloria!