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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey. Family. Welcome to day 328 here on the Bible Department podcast. I hope I didn't lose you yesterday. I hope you're still rocking with me. I hope either you're more interested in Song of Songs than you ever have been, or you're like, this ain't the book for me. Either way, we got one day left in Song of Songs. Don't skip out on today. All right, we got songs, Song of Songs, chapter seven and eight. If you have not done the reading, you can go do the reading now. So stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done, and then come back. Like every day, we are gonna dive into context clues. We're gonna dive into some nerdy nuggets. I'm gonna try to give you as many as I can. And then we're gonna leave off the episode with a timeless truth. And then tomorrow, we are in the Book of Ruth. All right, we can wave bye bye to Song of Songs. All right, let's get into the context clues for today. I'm gonna give you a big 30,000 foot kind of idea for Song of Songs. Remember, I said that of the four interpretive approaches that we could pick for this book, that allegorical actually had some semblance of legitimacy. And then I said, like, cultic. Absolutely none dramatic. Eh, I could take it or leave it, but it may be helpful for some people to read the book that way. But that lyrical was my favorite way to read the book and the most academic way to read the book. And so let's talk about that, you know, ounce of legitimacy that we have in the allegorical way to read this book. Now, there's five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Tanakh that create what's called the megalot, okay? Or the five scrolls and that Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther in Ecclesiastes. These five books of the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible are going to get read at certain festivals. All right? So it's almost like liturgy in terms of there are certain things that you read at certain times of the year. Okay? So I'm going to kind of tell you all of them and I'll leave Song of Songs last. Okay? Ecclesiastes was to be read at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Book of Esther was to be read at Purim. The Book of Lamentations was to be read on the 9th of AV. And that is festival. Or that really culminates in mourning. So you could google 9th of AV. I won't dive into it here because I don't have time. It will make total sense why Lamentations gets read on the 9th of AV. Ruth got read at Pentecost, and then Song of Songs was read at Passover. Okay, so we need to kind of ask the question, why? Why was Song of Songs read during Passover? And there's a really, really good reason for that. Okay. The connection between Passover and the Song of Songs might not be obvious at first, but you begin to consider the ways these poems have been interpreted over the years, then it starts to make a lot of sense. A Jewish interpretation was that the poems reflect the relationship between Yahweh and Israel, his bride, a relationship that begins in Egypt, where he rescues them from working through the. Or rescues them from slavery. Or rescue them from working, same as the female figure here in Song of Songs through the Passover, and takes them to Sinai for a wedding covenant. For the wedding. You can see straight away that even in Jewish times, not everyone was sure of what to do with this book or how to interpret it. Okay, so there is some legitimacy to the fact that there is an allegorical nature. That doesn't mean that allegory should be the dominant way that we interpret the text. It just means, hey, there's an allegorical layer. But one layer by itself shouldn't define the whole cake, right? It's one layer. One layer. All right. Kind of wanted to start off the episode with that. Okay. Second thing is, I really want to give a disclaimer. You may be thinking to yourself, man, I shouldn't let my high school student read Song of Songs, or I shouldn't let my middle school student read Song of Songs. Or maybe you just feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with. You know, maybe you're a parent, you feel uncomfortable with the topic of sex with your teenager or child. And I just want to say this to you. I want to kind of push back a little. Okay. If you would. If you would allow me to kind of speak pastorally into your life. Here's just an idea that I think maybe most parents haven't considered, and that's this. That the first person to introduce an idea to your children by default becomes the expert on that topic. Say that again. The first person to introduce an idea to your child or to anybody really, by default, becomes the expert on that topic. So the first person to ever talk to me about bitcoin or cryptocurrency was a guy named Daniel de Gabriel. He's like the first person to really talk to me about it. There could be people who know more about it than him, but he introduced it to me, and therefore every time I have a question about it, I talk to him, okay? And you can probably find that in your own life, okay? Whatever the topic, whoever introduces that topic to you, in your mind, that person becomes the de facto expert. Just by default, they become an expert. And so I always ask parents this question. Who do you want to be the expert when it comes to sex as it relates to your middle school student or high school student? Do you want pornography to be the de facto expert on all things sex? Do you want a boyfriend to become the de facto expert on all things sex? Do you want a girlfriend to become the de facto expert? Do you want the middle school health instructor to become the expert? Do you want the sex ed teacher to become the expert? Do you want a vlogger? You want a trans vlogger to be the expert? The de facto expert? Like, who do you want to introduce this idea to your kid? And if you'd like to be the expert, then that means that you are going to have to have an active relationship with this conversation, not a reactive or passive relationship with this topic as it relates to your daughter or your son. And the reality is that for many of us, here's what did not happen. And this is the conversation I plan on having with my son. I plan on sitting him down when he's probably 7, 8, 9, and just saying, hey, like, I want to tell you about the most beautiful thing God made. The most beautiful thing that God ever created, okay? Because right now, my son's 4, and he's just like, God, God made everything. You know? He's like, dad, God made that table. I'm like, well, God made humans, and humans made the table. And anyway, anyway, so I plan on telling him, hey, I want to tell you about the most beautiful thing that God made, okay? It's not the moon. It's not the stars, not the sun. It's not giraffes, not me. It's not you. It's not humans. The most beautiful thing. The most beautiful thing that God made is the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. It's beautiful. It's the most mysterious. It's the most captivating it's the most beautiful thing that God ever made, okay? And, you know, it's so important. It's so precious. It's such a fascinating topic that the I, that, that, that Satan likes to pervert it. And I want to talk to you about the most beautiful thing that God ever made. And it's called sex. And it's the sexual relationship between one man and one woman in the context of a marital relationship. And son, it's like a fire. And fire can do so many great things, right? A fire can warm your hands. A fire can cook food. You know, without fire, where would we be? But a fire could also burn down your house. And God made this. God made this. And water's good. And, and water can it, you know, you can get fish out of water. You can. You water, it sustains life, but it could also flood a village and kill everybody, okay? So, you know, surfing, fantastic. Tsunami, not so good, okay? And so sex is the most beautiful thing that God ever made. And I want us to have an open dialogue as it relates to attraction, arousal, sexuality, sexual expression. I want you to feel like you can always talk to me, and I'm going to talk to you about it. I'm not going to wait for you to talk to me about it. I'm going to. I'm going to be talking to you about it. I'm going to be asking you questions and I want to know what you know. And I just want you to know, like, dad. Dad has every answer to every question you could ever imagine. And the, the goal of that conversation is not to weird him out or to creep him out. The goal of that conversation is to establish myself as the expert when it comes to this topic. So that when he's 12, 13, 14, 15, whatever age he is, and he's got questions that he goes, I can ask my dad. I can ask my dad. Now the voice of puberty and the voice of the enemy is going to be in his ear saying, no, Keep a secret. No. Ask your friend. No, Ask your uncle. No, Ask this person. No, ask that person. No. Google it. Ask ChatGPT, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, and I can't control all that, but what I can control is the planting of the seed, the planting of the thought in his mind. That man, I think my dad's the expert. Like, I think he knows. And that's just, that's my goal, is to set myself up as the expert when it comes to sex and sexual expression and sexuality with my son. And hopefully at some point, me and my Wife have a daughter. And my goal is that my wife would become the expert with my daughter, with our daughter. But that's my job as a dad, is to create a judgment free space where he can ask me anything about sex and about women and about girls and about his attractions and for me to be able to love him, parent him, pastor him, guide him, and train him up in the way that he should go so that when he gets old, he won't depart from it. Okay. And I think that there's too many parents abdicating that responsibility to a sex ed teacher at school, to a boyfriend, to a girlfriend, to pornography. By the way, the average age of exposure to pornography in 2025 is 8.8 years old. So the average 8 year old has seen pornography. So if the average 8 year old has seen pornography, if you are naive enough to believe that your kid just doesn't know what sex is at all, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that you're wa. You're making a wager, and I'd rather be safe than sorry. Okay. All right. That's context. That's a disclaimer. I've used up a lot of my time. All right. Poem number seven is Song of Songs, chapter six, verse four to eight. Verse four. Poem number eight, we're gonna go to Song of Songs, chapter eight, and we are gonna go to verses six. Okay? First thing I actually want you to know in verse five is it says, under the apple tree, I roused you. So we're gonna get tons of garden imagery in most of these poems. Okay, I know I kind of hinted at that maybe yesterday or the day before, but we're gonna get tons and tons and tons of garden imagery. Why are they underneath a tree? They're underneath a tree because the couple that is personified here is. Is a new Adam and a new Eve. They're naked with no shame. And so next. Okay. Is the word seal. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. This is verse six. For love is as strong as death. Is jealousy unyielding as the grave. Let's talk about what a seal would have done in context. Okay. Obviously, many of us are not sending letters and sealing it, like, with a signet ring. Like, that's just not what, you know, many of us are doing. Okay. The seal would bear the name of the one who sealed the letter or the scroll. It signified their authority that the words were indeed theirs and theirs alone. What was inside was only available to the One who sealed it or who they sealed it for and the one to whom it was given. Okay? One giver, one recipient. The bride is saying then that her name is on his heart and arm. It belongs to her. No one else has the authority to open it and take what is inside. It is available to her alone. I want you to think forward to, like the Book of Revelation, when it's like, who can open the scrolls? Who can unseal the seal? Well, only the lamb who's been slain before the foundation of the earth, okay? Only. Only he can open its seal. Okay, so in the same way, marriage is a union whereby a seal can only be given from one to another and can only be opened from the one from which it was given to the one it is received by. Okay? Her love is as strong as death, such as the passion dedication she has from him. Here we are also going to see our next nerdy nugget. Okay, the word jealousy versus envy, it says this. I'll start at the top of verse six. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death. It's jealousy, unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Okay, so we are now going to dive into just that word, jealousy. Oftentimes today, jealousy is used really as a synonym to envy, which is a mistake because jealousy and envy are not the same thing. Okay, but jealousy and envy don't mean the same thing. Jealousy is the defense of the desire to keep for yourself what is already yours. Envy is to desire that which belongs to someone else. So what the male voice is saying is that his heart belongs to her alone. And so her jealousy, for it was as strong and inevitable as Sheol itself. The same way that people die is the same way that I am jealous. Ok, so jealousy and envy, not the same. Which explains why Yahweh can describe himself as jealous as opposed to why envy could be one of the ten Commandments. Right? Don't covet that which belongs to your neighbor. Okay, so envy is desiring something that belongs to someone else and wishing that was yours. Jealousy is not that. Those are not the same. Jealousy is wanting to defend that which actually belongs to to you. It's actually yours. All right, next is we're going to get into a metaphor where you kind of need to understand the difference between a door and a wall. Okay, so chapter eight, verse eight. We have a little sister and her breasts are not yet grown. Okay, so this is a prepubescent girl what shall we do for our sister on the day she has spoken for the. That means on the day that she's betrothed. Okay, so this is a girl who's not yet at the age to be betrothed. Betrothal age was right around 13. So who knows? This girl may be 10, she may be 11. Okay, she may be 8. Who knows? And it says this. If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. And then the metaphor. The metaphor is about to make sense. If she is a door, we will enclose her with. With panels of cedar. I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. Thus I become in his eyes like one, bringing contentment. Okay, wall versus a door. What's a wall? A wall would be a woman who's like, you know, placed a wall there. You can't get in. A door is some. Is a woman who's wide open, okay? It can open and close. So what. What they're saying is, hey, like, our little sister hasn't been betrothed yet. Is she going to be a door or is she going to be a wall? Okay, Is she going to be someone who's abstinent? Or is she going to be someone who allows men in and out? Okay, is she a wall or is she a door? Which really gets me into my timeless truth for the day. And I'll kind of steal my own thunder, but I think that the goal of the scriptures and of Song of Songs is to have purity without purity culture. I think sometimes when I tell people that I'm anti purity culture, they think that I'm anti purity, that I'm anti abstinence, celibacy, that I'm against, you know, people having a vow to stay purpose sexually pure until marriage. And that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm all for that. What I mean by purity culture is shaming people, guilting people into making that decision, and then incentivizing that decision by making false promises. Like, if you are pure, you will have earned a spouse in a great sex life. It's like, well, that's crazy. And saying things that are just not true about sex, saying, not admitting that sex is pleasurable and it's great and it's awesome. And so the Bible is all about purity. It's just not purity culture. And I think that we've got to separate the two, and we've got to keep helping people to be pure because sex will damage their life if used in an unwise way. Okay, so. And you can hear it this older sister is like, hey, man, we gotta help our little sister be a wall and not a door. And then goes on to say, I'm a wall. Like, I have proven throughout all of these poems and all these songs that I wasn't sexually active with my lover until our wedding. So next is. I think we're gonna get the biggest proof that Solomon's not the hero, okay, of the book as a whole, but rather a villain. It says this in verse 11. Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Haman. He let out his vineyard. He let out. They rented out or leased out his vineyard to tenants. Each was to bring. Each was to bring for its fruit a thousand shekels of silver. But my own vineyard is mine to give. Okay? So it's saying that the main character and Solomon are gonna respond very, very differently to this vineyard analogy, okay? She had but one vineyard, and she gave it to her beloved. Solomon can keep his thousand vineyards. He has access to many women. His lifestyle cheapens the palm's champions. The poem's champions is this worker girl, this country girl, and her shepherd boy, Solomon. Keep your thousand for one is far better. And then we get our final poem, family. The wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I saw signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your perspective, personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. It says, the thousand shekels are for you, Solomon, and 200 are for those who tend its fruit. Then we get verse 13. You who dwell in the gardens with friends and attendants, let me hear your voice. Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice laden mountains. So love is going to take on the imagery of a garden. And we're going to see that all throughout the book. But it closes with that. That for those who heed the wisdom of Song of Songs, they get to be Adam and Eve figure. They get to come back into the garden and be naked and not ashamed. Naked and not ashamed means that your spouse should be able to say anything. And it's not that they're. What they say may not get challenged, but that what they said won't ever be met with judgment or shame. There's. There's a big difference between shaming someone or judging someone for what they say or versus correcting what they say. Last thing is that as we compare Israel's relationship with Yahweh, this Artemis truth, by the way, as we compare Israel's relationship with Yahweh, we want to keep in mind that Israel's relationship with Yahweh, our relationships with our spouses include phileo, eros, and agape. Meanwhile, our relationship with the Lord really is only phileo and agape. And you may not know what those Greek words mean, but there are multiple Greek words for love. And there's only one English word for love. And one of those Greek words was phileo, which means like brotherly love. It's like Philadelphia phileo, brotherly love, family love, friendship love. And eros is where we get the word erotic, right? So there's eros love. There's passionate, sexual, sensual love, and then there's agape, this like, perfect Godly love, like the kind of love that, that Jesus offers. And I think sometimes when we get into marital conversations, we need agape, we need fileto. But there's this other category of love that we don't necessarily have with God, that's eros love. And I've heard a lot of people say, you know, my husband should love me, like Christ loves the church. And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. Like, please. Like, that is the standard that Paul gives men. And I then say, but I just want to give you, like, one caveat is that, you know, Jesus doesn't have to be in an erotic relationship with you. So, like, yes, like, your. Your husband needs to have agape, your husband needs to have fileto for you. But there's also like an erotic part of love that if we're not careful, we'll just over spiritualize marriage and over spiritualize everything about marriage. And it's almost like we'll throw out the erotic part of marriage. And I think that it's really, really important that we always remember when we talk about marriage, yes, I have a friendship with the Lord that has to be protected. I have a grace and a perfect love with God that requires me to be obedient like, there's agape, there's phileo, but there is not an erotic element to my relationship with the Lord. And I think that sometimes if we just try to map our relationship with God onto marriage, I think that we end up essentially giving married people really bad advice. Like, like. Like the kind of advice that really leads to people not emphasizing the sexual health of their marital relationships and. And almost ignoring the sexual realities of. Of the sensual and sexual realities of. Of a relationship, of an earthly, physical, human relationship. And I would just challenge us that when we talk about marriage, you have to include the friendship love, the fileto love, the erotic love, and agape love. All right, tomorrow we're gonna dive into the Book of Ruth. We're gonna take one day to study the entire Book of Ruth. It's gonna. It's gonna be dope. I love the Book of Ruth. I'm really, really excited about it. I'll see you right here, same time, same place, as we dive into Ruth. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4. Get the Reading done. Meet me right back here tomorrow. Love you guys. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible Department and on Instagram. Hebibledepartment. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.