I know that while in Heaven He stands No tongue can bid me thence depart^
II.
The Steength of Lovb.
*' For love is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the grave."
1. The meaning of this clause is obscured by the translation. The word " jealousy " should be " love " — love regarded in its ardour and inexorable force, the love that can neither yield nor share possession of its object. The word rendered " cruel" indicates the tenacity of this ardent affection, not its cruelty ; it implies, not that it will torture its object, but that it will never let it go.
* C. "W. Lepper, The Bridegroom and His Bride, 237,
474 IN PRAISE OF LOVE
And the word rendered " grave " is " Sheol," the Hebrew name for that invisible underworld which so distinctly refuses to yield back the spirits which have once descended into it. So that, as we have no such synonym for the word " love " as the Hebrew use it here, we had better, to avoid repeating the same word, omit it from the second line altogether, and translate the whole distich thus : — " For love is strong as death, tenacious as Hades itself." And, obviously, what the poet intends is to set forth this master- passion of the soul as an elemental principle of being, the sole power in us which is capable of coping with death and Hades, and of overcoming them.
^ This is a wonderful statement, when we remember that at the time it was spoken people looked upon death as practically the end of everything. The Hebrew Sheol was a dismal place, the place of all departed souls, bad and good, and without much that was hopeful or interesting in the kind of existence it allowed. In the later and higher developments of Jewish thought about the state of the so-called dead, some attempt was made to differentiate between the lot of the righteous and that of the wicked in this gloomy underworld. But it was not so at first, and it is very doubtful if it was so even at the time this text was written. It was believed that at death the Divine principle — the breath of God, as it were — was withdrawn from the human personality which, thus bereft, though it went on living in Sheol, did so with- out experiencing any of the former zest and joy of life ; it was but a poor, shadowy, attenuated sort of existence that was left to the soul deprived of the body and of the animating spirit of God. Hence, the thought of death was always a sad one to these people, and was to them synonymous with the end of everything worth calling life so far as the individual was concerned.^
2. But the poet says truly that love is strong as death, tenacious as the grave. That which we love in any one is the eternal, and love once manifest can never die or even diminish, whatever may be its fate on earth through the mutability and inconstancy of our fleshly nature ; the rapport once established is indestructible ; the affinity must fulfil itself as surely as the rosy light of the dawn must culminate in the splendour of the sun's meridian. Did any one ever yet dare to say that they would love friend, wife, husband, sweetheart, child, for just a certain length
^ E. J. Cam[)bell, in The Christian Commomcealth, Nov. 13, 1912.
SONG OF SONGS viii. 6, 7 475
of time, and that then that love should altogether cease to be ? By the exigencies of its very nature it takes for granted that it is eternal. Whenever it is true and noble — and, indeed, in proportion to its nobility and truth — it deepens and strengthens as the days go on. It implies, all the more the truer and nobler it is, the interlinking and interdependence of thought and heart and character. This is apart from all mere external circum- stances ; it is a phenomenon of our being — soul linked with soul ; it is a spiritual fact, not a temporal one. And what has it to do with the chance of passing accidents of space and time ? The stars may shine in brightness or be wrapped in gloom. Two living beings may be together with joy or separated with sadness by a vast expanse of rolling sea ; the sun may be shining above them, or the storms may be out ; variations of joy or sorrow may pass over them according to the blessings or trials of life — the blessings of nearness, or the trials of separation ; but one thing remains untouched by circumstance, unsubdued by change ; soul is bound to soul — they love. Here is a phenomenon above all changeful accident; here is a fact perfectly human, yet really Divine ; here is an assertion, if ever there can be one, of eternity ; here is a power which smiles, even if it be through tears, at the accident of death. Love, the strongest as well as the most lovely thing known to human experience, is " as strong as death " — nay, stronger ; and it asserts the life beyond the grave.
^ Death is an accident in immortality, a terrible accident, a heartbreaking accident if you like, but still an accident ; and do you think that that immortal thing which has descended sun- flushed from the heart of the Creator, and illuminated and glorified and possessed the life of an immortal, can trouble to stand bandying words with a mere accident in immortality ? " Love is as strong as death." Why, the wise man has spoken with a cautious restraint. We may surely say that love is stronger than death and mightier than the grave.^