Using unparalleled poetic language, the Song of Songs explores the full range of emotions experienced by the two lovers as their mutual commitment develops, culminating in marriage. The powerful and uninhibited affirmation of love, loyalty, and earthly sexuality expressed in the Song of Songs is extremely relevant today, when commercialized eroticism is fashionable but permanence in relationships is not.
Tom Gledhill argues that beauty, intimacy, and sexual consummation should be celebrated, but they are not ends in themselves. Rather, they point to another world, another dimension, which is only occasionally and faintly perceived. God has chosen the love between a man and a woman as an image of his love for his people.
