Note 103 — INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

1771. The honour, however, of first elucidating the true design of this book is due to J. T. Jacobi; notwithstanding the imperfections of his attempt. He showed that the importance of this Song is not to describe the chaste passion of conjugal love, but to celebrate fidelity. The pattern of this conjugal fidelity is the Shulamite, the heroine of the book. This humble woman was married to a shepherd. Solomon, being struck with her beauty, tempted her with the luxuries and splendour of his court to forsake her husband and enter the royal harem; but the Shulamite spurned all the allurements, and remained faithful to her humble husband.103 However strange the manner in which Jacobi divides this book, and the interpretation of separate passages, it must be acknowledged that he was the first in Germany who showed that Solomon was not the object of the Shulamite’s affections, and that the beloved was a humble shepherd from whom the King endeavoured to separate her. It will be remembered that Ibn Ezra, Immanuel, and the Anonymous Commentary,104 have already taken the lovers to be a shepherd and shepherdess, and regarded Solomon as a separate person, whom the rustic maiden adduces in illustration of her sincere attachment to her shepherd, affirming that if this great King were to bring her into his court, and offer her all its grandeur and luxuries, she would still rejoice in her humble lover.