Identifying Speakers in the Song of Solomon
Question: I have recently gone through your video series on Song of Solomon. In the concluding video, at seven minutes and eight seconds, you presented a chart showing who the specific speakers were for each section of verses. Since the text itself does not outrightly indicate this, you mentioned that you would put the complete chart on your website. In attempting to access the video series from your site, I repeatedly get the notice that an error occurred, and thus I am not finding the chart. I would very much like to print this out. I am about to begin a study of your book, God's Love Song for Israel: Study Outlines on the Greatest Song of History. I am really hoping you will be able to help me with this. By the way, the reason I chose your teaching in particular on this was because I felt there had to be more we could glean from the book. So I am very glad I found your series.
You are right to observe that the Song of Solomon can be difficult to follow because the text does not always explicitly label who is speaking. The dialog moves between the king, the bride, and occasionally other voices, and English translations often do not indicate these shifts clearly. One of the interpretive tools I used in that series was the underlying Hebrew grammar: masculine and feminine forms frequently reveal whether the speaker or the one addressed is male or female, which clarifies many sections.
However, there are limits to that method. Some Hebrew words are inherently masculine or feminine regardless of the actual subject, so grammatical gender is not always a guide. Still, in many places the gendered forms of verbs and pronouns help distinguish when the bride is speaking, when the king is speaking, and when the daughters of Jerusalem or other voices enter.
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In the course of preparing that series, I assembled a chart assigning speakers to each unit of text, based on grammatical indicators and contextual clues. That is what you saw referenced in the concluding video. It should have been made available on the website, and your difficulty accessing it is another instance of the broader technical issue with older content and embedded resources. The error message you are receiving when trying to view the series from the site suggests that the integration between the site and the media host for that particular series is failing, even though the material itself still exists.
Because of that, the immediate and concrete way I can assist is by locating that chart in my own notes and sending it directly to you by email, so that you can print it and use it alongside the outline volume you mentioned. I do have those notes locally and will respond to your email address with the chart attached after the program. That gives you access without having to wait on the larger technical repairs to the site.
More broadly, your interest in the Song has already influenced another project: I am working on a full-prose book-length treatment of the Song of Songs under the title The Song of Songs: God's Love Song for Israel. Unlike the outline volume, this work develops the argument and exposition in full sentences and paragraphs, with a detailed table of contents and more refined structure. It is nearing completion; there are still some formatting and structural details to correct before it goes to print, but the core material is largely in place. When that volume is released, it will present the interpretive framework for the Song more fully, including the identification of speakers and the cycles within the narrative.
Since you have engaged the series carefully and are preparing to use the outlines in further study, I intend to ensure that you receive the very first copy off the press of the new Song of Songs book when it is printed, signed and sent to you. In the meantime, the chart itself will be sent via email so that you can begin your study with the help of a clear speaker map, even while the website issues are being addressed.
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