Best Commentaries on Song of Songs

An excellent commentary. Duguid is clear, concise, and careful. His book is full of wonderful illustrations and helpful applications.

Gledhill maintains that Song of Songs is a literary, poetic exploration of human love that strongly affirms loyalty, beauty, and biblical sexuality. He sees marital love as a transcendental longing that points beyond itself to the divine author, who in this Song is nowhere mentioned but everywhere assumed. As Mathison observes, “Gledhill’s commentary on the Song of Songs is accessible to any reader, but the fact that it is accessible does not mean that it is simplistic. In fact, in places it is truly profound and insightful.”

Drawing on his expertise in Wisdom Literature, O’Donnell helps his readers uncoil the Song’s complexities and riddles. His work is exegetically rich amd immensely helpful with hermeneutical and textual issues. He also explores the poetry, themes, and wisdom of the Song from a Christocentric perspective, giving readers a profound and sometimes witty reflection that encourages right thinking and behavior.

Mathison believes Provan’s commentary “should prove . . . helpful to preachers and others looking for practical application.” Provan uniquely argues that the Song is a drama with three main characters. Longman says, “The basic plot as [Provan] reconstructs it is that Solomon has forced a country girl into his harem, though she continues to love the shepherd boy back home. The theme of the book proclaims that true love resists coerced legal love.”

Longman says, “Schwab combines the skills of an exegete with that of a person sensitive to issues of sexuality. . . . He is to be commended for reading the Song as a collection of love poems rather than as a drama.”

Following an introduction to the biblical book and a history of its interpretation, Hess, an expert in ancient Near eastern history, divides his discussion into seven major sections. Each begins with a fresh translation followed by paragraph-by-paragraph commentary and a summary of the passage’s theological implications. As Mathison observes, “Among the more advanced commentaries written from an evangelical perspective, the work by Richard Hess is probably the most helpful. In addition to careful exegesis, Hess provides insightful reflections on the theology of the book. This is something missing in too many commentaries.” Pastors and teachers will find here an accessible commentary that will serve as an excellent resource for their study.

Learned yet accessible, innovative yet fully informed by past scholarship, this commentary shows the beautiful Song of Songs to be a timeless celebration of human love and sexuality. Longman’s thorough introduction canvasses the long history of interpretation of the Song of Songs. He then structures the book according to its 23 poetic units and explains its message verse by verse. The exposition is made clearer by Longman’s frequent comparisons of the Song of Songs with other ancient Near Eastern literature. As Mathison observes, “He approaches the book as a poem (or more precisely an anthology of poems) about the male-female relationship, which itself is analogous to the relationship between God and His people.”

Murphy gives attention to the hermeneutical principles Jewish and Christian interpreters have employed when interpreting the Song throughout history. As Longman observes writes, “Murphy provides an excellent critical reading of the text. He emphasizes its final form and is concerned with theological issues.”