Solomon and the Shulamite

I'm reading through the Old Testament again, and am struck by the story of Abishag.

"Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, 'Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.'  [Yeah, that'll do it. I love the unblenching virility of the Bible: some time between Augustine and Luther, Christianity became a religion of wan eunuchs, but the Bible is not so. --ed.] So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not." -- 1 Kings 1:1-4

In case you're not up on Elizabethan vernacular, "knew her not" means she was still a virgin when the king died.

So later, when David has died and Solomon has been made king, his brother Adonijah, who had tried to declare himself king and was barely spared his life by Solomon, goes to Solomon's mother, Bathsheba (yeah, the woman David "knew" after watching her bathe on her rooftop), and sends her to ask king Solomon to give him Abishag as his wife. Look at Solomon's reaction:

"And king Solomon answered and said unto his mother, 'And why dost thou ask Abishag the Shunammite for Adonijah? Ask for him the kingdom also'."

Then he had Adonijah executed. That's a pretty strong reaction, right? So who was Abishag to Solomon, that he valued her alongside his entire kingdom, and even more, because he pardoned his brother for trying to usurp his throne, but killed him for asking for Abishag?

Well, I had a suspicion, and some research confirmed it: Shunammite is another way of saying Shulamite. (The village in Israel which was called in ancient times 'Shunem' is now called 'Solem'. 'Shulam' is an obvious transitional form in the linguistic evolution of the word.) That is, 'Shulamite', as in;

"Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners.
Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.
Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.
As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.
There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.
My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.
The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.
Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?
I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.
Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.
Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee.
What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." 

-- Song of Solomon 6

So Solomon fell in love--truly fell in love, with this sweet young girl who cherished and ministered to his father. I can almost see the love progressing, as the two of them love and minister to the good old man, each noting the tenderness and respect which the other shows him; glances, whispered words, perhaps a fleeting brush as they pass, or a touch on the arm....

Some say that the Shulamite was one of Solomon's other wives, such as Pharaoh's daughter, for whom he built part of the palace. But in chapter one of the Song, the bride says that she is dark from the sun, because her mother's children were angry with her and made her tend the vineyards. That doesn't sound like a Pharaoh's daughter: it fits much better with a common girl of uncommon beauty who was found in a nation-wide search of maidens to keep the king company. A simple country girl whose beauty, grace, and charm comforted the old king and captivated the heart of the young one. Beautiful, no? Here's a passage on the Shulamite from the book All the Women of the Bible:

"Although Solomon composed 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32), the one before us from his gifted pen was in a class by itself, which he named, “The Song of Songs,” meaning a very excellent song, or the most surpassing of his Songs. Because of the sexual atmosphere of this song, or poem, there have been those writers who have protested against its inclusion in Holy Writ, not only because of its love content, but also because it is destitute of any declared divine name or truth. Solomon’s “Song” is not simply an oriental love poem, full of exquisite beauty and charm, set amid beautiful pastoral scenes. It is also the portrayal of a lovely yet lowly maiden from her northern home who could not be swayed by the wealth and splendor of a gorgeous court life. She loved her beloved for what he was, not had, and gave him all her love, and was adverse to his sharing his love with any other woman.
Immersed in polygamy as Solomon was, and which in his heart, he knew to be against God’s law, it may be that he wrote this Song as a protest against an almost universal practice, and as a portrayal of the purity and constancy of a pure woman’s love and of the ideal relationship God ordained for a man and a woman. Today, human society is saturated, to its detriment, with lower ideals of free love, loose practices and easy divorces. The attractive Shulamite impressed upon the ladies (?) of the court her love and loyalty to the one man who had wooed and won her heart. That she triumphed can be gathered from her confident confession, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is towards me,” and many waters could not quench such singular love. Spiritual minds all down the ages have seen in this remarkable Song a symbol of the new union and communion existing between Christ and His true church—His Bride."

Also, the Bible says that "Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh...and his wives turned away his heart after other gods." The love shared by the two protagonists  of the poem is a holy, pure love. The kind of love that can only be shared by a man and woman in communion with the true God. Look at this:

"And Solomon brought up the daughter of Pharaoh out of the city of David unto the house that he had built for her: for he said, 'My wife shall not dwell in the house of David king of Israel, because the places are holy, whereunto the ark of the Lord hath come.'" -- II Chron. 8:11

So this is speculation, but speculation based on the textual evidence: Pharaoh's daughter and all the other "strange women" were kept separately from Solomon's own dwelling place, because they were not holy. But would God choose the union of his holy and anointed king with an unholy strange woman to be the picture of His union with his mystical bride? I think not. The Beloved of the Song is a daughter of Sarah. Solomon's true love was Abishag the Shulamite.

Another thing sparked my attention, as I was reading a little further on. Solomon was thirty-ish when he became king, and obviously couldn't marry what was technically his father's concubine as long as his father was alive. And she was a "young virgin", which, at the time, probably meant about fourteen. That means that the most beautiful and moving love poem ever written, the love story which has inspired people for the last three thousand years or so, and the image of romantic love which God Himself chose to portray His love for us, His people, was between a man and a woman about fifteen years apart in age.

I especially love the lines, "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" and "Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me." You don't really get it until you've really, truly been in love. Until you're a ridiculous man who's not afraid of anything in the world except a hundred and ten pound girl with hair like flowing honey and eyes like the Caribbean sea sparkling in sunlight.