Note 61 — INTRODUCTION.
Christian D. (Christian David) Ginsburg translation
1350. So numerous and diverse were the interpretations of this Song in the middle of the fourteenth century, that R. Isaac Sehula, having been solicited by his friends to comment upon it, consulted the existing expositions, but finding himself so confused by their conflicting theories, as some explained it literally, others referred it to the union of the body with the soul, others again expounded it according to the Medrash, and others again affirmed, that it represents the union of the active with the passive intellect, he felt it necessary to reject them all, and advanced a new theory, viz., that this book represents the love of the people of Israel to their God.61