Song of Solomon 8King James Version
The closing chapter. 'Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' One of the great declarations of love in world literature. The book ends with her calling him to make haste and come away.
The bride wishes she could meet her beloved openly in public, like a brother, without social censure. She wants to bring him to her mother's house and share spiced wine. The refrain not to rush love returns one final time. A question: who is this coming from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Then the poem's most quoted lines: love is as strong as death, jealousy as fierce as the grave, no flood can drown it. Brothers discuss the bride's future. She declares herself a wall, her breasts towers. The poem ends with one more invitation to run to her.
Love this strong does not ask for cultural permission, cannot be bought, and survives every flood. The final verses are the poem's thesis stated plainly.
verse: "Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned." (8:7), Love cannot be purchased or extinguished, which means it operates by entirely different rules than every other force in the poem's world.
The wilderness journey, the apple tree where she was born, the mother's house: the poem ends by returning to origins. Ancient betrothal customs involving brothers negotiating a sister's future are visible beneath the text. The vineyard at Baalhamon, whether literal or symbolic, grounds the final scene in the agrarian world the poem has moved through from the first verse.
The bride speaks most of the chapter with renewed authority. Brothers, who earlier set her to keep vineyards, now discuss her future as though she were property, but she overrules them. The beloved is present but mostly silent. An unnamed voice asks about the woman ascending from the wilderness.
The love-strong-as-death statement is the theological summit of the poem. In Jewish reading, the love between God and Israel is precisely this: unkillable, unquenchable, unbroken by exile. In Christian reading, it anticipates a love that enters death and emerges intact. The poem's ending without neat closure mirrors how love actually ends: mid-sentence, still calling.
The chapter holds the poem's two registers simultaneously: the warmth of a woman who wants to kiss her beloved in the marketplace, and the cosmic force of a love declaration that sounds like it was carved into the same stone as the law. Both are necessary. Neither cancels the other.
1O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised.
2I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.
3His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.
4I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.
5Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee.
6Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.
7Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.
8We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?
9If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.
10I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.
11Solomon had a vineyard at Baalhamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers; every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.
12My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.
13Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.
14Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.