Solomon's Bed Was Guarded by Sixty Letters

Israel Rose From the Wilderness Like Columns of Smoke

The Song asks who is this ascending from the wilderness like columns of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. Shir HaShirim Rabbah answers: Israel. In the wilderness, a people was organized. Torah came from the desert. The Mishkan came from the desert. The priesthood, the Levites, the Sanhedrin, the patterns of kingship, all of them were formed in the same stretch of sand and rock where there was no grain and no figs and no water. The smoke rising from the wilderness was not simply altar smoke. It was the visible sign of a nation acquiring structure. Before Israel arrived at the land, it had already become organized enough to carry holiness. The desert was the forge. The institutions were the metal. The smoke was the evidence that something was being made that would outlast the forty years, the manna, the complaints, and the graves of the generation that could not enter.

Sixty Warriors Carried the Priestly Blessing

Behold the litter of Solomon: sixty warriors around it, all of them holding swords, all of them practiced in war, each one with his sword on his thigh against the terrors of the night. Shir HaShirim Rabbah counts the letters. The Priestly Blessing, may the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, may the Lord lift His face toward you and give you peace, contains exactly sixty letters. The sixty warriors are those sixty letters. Solomon's bed is the space held open by the blessing, protected by the words that God commanded Aaron and his sons to place on the children of Israel. The sword on the thigh is the letter fully formed, ready to be pronounced. The terror of the night is every force that seeks to find a gap between the blessing and the one being blessed. The warriors stand because the letters stand, because the blessing was given to be repeated morning and evening for as long as Israel has priests and names.

Solomon's Wisdom Was Matched to His Song

God gave Solomon wisdom, understanding, and breadth of heart like the sand on the seashore. He spoke three thousand proverbs. He sang a thousand and five songs. He spoke about trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows from the wall. He spoke about animals, birds, creeping things, and fish. People came from all nations to hear his wisdom. Shir HaShirim Rabbah places the Song of Songs at the height of that output, not just one song among a thousand and five, but the song of songs, the song that stands above the rest the way the Sabbath stands above the six ordinary days. The wisdom that could speak about trees and fish and creeping things found in the Song its fullest voice because the Song spoke about the thing that none of the proverbs could fully contain: what passes between lover and beloved when the terms are finally adequate to the relationship.

Ezra Opened the Door After the Exile

I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. Shir HaShirim Rabbah reads Ezra in that verse. After the Babylonian exile, when Cyrus permitted return, the community that came back was smaller than what had been taken. The Temple they built was smaller than what had been destroyed. The door that was opened was opened by Ezra's hands, the scribe who reorganized the Torah reading, who gathered the community in the square before the Water Gate, who read from the book from early morning until midday while the people wept. Ezra opened the door to covenant renewal after the beloved had, apparently, turned and gone. He found the footsteps of the one who had withdrawn still warm in the courtyard. The myrrh on the handles of the door was still there. The door was opened. The door had to be opened. Whether the beloved had gone entirely or was still nearby was the question the returning community could not stop asking.

Cyrus Stood at the Threshold and Hesitated

Cyrus of Persia issued the decree that allowed the exiles to return to Zion and rebuild the Temple. Shir HaShirim Rabbah holds that decree in both hands and finds it insufficient. Cyrus acted in the days when the prophecy of Isaiah and Jeremiah required someone to act. He was named by Isaiah over a century before his birth as the one who would say of Jerusalem, she shall be rebuilt. He gave permission. He returned the Temple vessels. But he did not come himself. He stood outside the story he had made possible and let others walk through the door his edict had opened. The Midrash reads Cyrus in the Song's moment where the beloved delays: I have taken off my robe, how shall I put it on again? The permission was given without the full body of the permission-giver following it in. Cyrus hesitated at the threshold that he himself had unlocked, and the return was real but also incomplete. The beloved's withdrawal left traces on every door that was opened.