Song of Solomon 3:1

THE SHULAMITE'S DREAM

Song of Solomon 3:1-5

"By night on my bed

I sought him whom my soul loveth

I sought him, but I found him not.

I said, I will arise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the broad ways,

I will seek him whom my soul loveth:

I sought him, but I found him not.

The watchmen that go about the city found me:

To whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?

It was but a little that I passed from them,

When I found him whom my soul loveth:

I held him, and would not let him go,

Until I had brought him into my mother's house,

And into the chamber of her that conceived me.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the roes, or by the hinds of the field,

That ye stir not up, nor awaken my love,

Until he please."

The question regarding this paragraph is whether or not it relates an actual event, or the Shulamite's dream of searching for her lover. "This passage and Song of Solomon 5:2-7 are usually interpreted as dream sequences."[1] "The maiden relates a bad dream she had experienced."[2] "She is probably relating a dream."[3]

Nevertheless, this dream substantiates the statement that prevails in the whole book that the love-struck maiden's lover is a shepherd, not king Solomon. By no stretch of imagination could it be supposed that the maiden would have taken the king of Israel into her mother's bedroom, not even in a dream. Another function of this dream is that it stresses the physical absence of the Shepherd lover, Christ's absence from his Church until the Resurrection.

Verse 5 is the quadruple refrain that appears in the Song. (See a comment on this above, under Song of Solomon 2:7. The next paragraph represents the glittering blandishments of Solomon as a type of worldly temptations to the Church. The wealth, extravagance, ostentation and pride in this was an eloquent type of such allurements.