Love And Death

King Solomon

In The Song of Songs, 8:6, it says that: (NASB) ...For love is as strong as death, Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; Its flashes are flashes of fire, The very flame of the LORD. and another (God's Word 1995) ...Love is as overpowering as death. Devotion is as unyielding as the grave. Love's flames are flames of fire, flames that come from the LORD. and King James ...for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. The word translated as "jealousy" or "devotion" is in the Greek Septuagint as ζηλος, or zelos, which is the word meaning "zeal" or intensity with which something is done. I would read it that Love is as strong as Death; its holds the Lover in an unyielding death-like grip that burns like a flaming fire. (I have no idea where the idea that the flames are the flames of the Lord came from. As usual, good old King James is - to my mind - a much better translation. There are two terms: fire and flame. There was a distinction in the concept of fire between the flaring, flaming fire, and the fire that burned and heated without flame; i.e., the fire of glowing coals, or the fire of the sun -for to ancient science the sun did not necessarily have flame. The extension of the word "flame" to mean divine flame is a usurpation by the translator of the author's role.) That is a very good description of Love. It is also a good understanding of the minds of old, and their idea of Love, and we glimpse Aphrodite, Venus, Astarte, Ishtar, and their lovers, and all the beautiful gods of love. If, now, Love is as strong as Death, why do we live in the time of War; War, who is Death's rudely stamped and unfashionable offspring? I have lived in a temple all my life, the murals of which were extensively devoted to the depictions of Death and Destruction: the wars of the world, the atomic bomb, civil discords and future Armeggedons. The paintings devoted to Love were hidden behind plaster and veils drawn to deny them to our eyes. (I myself have watched the ghosts of Pompeii searching for their "zealous" portrayals of the kingdom of Love, only to leave in disappointment with the morning sun, because these generations of War worshippers have covered over their garden of delights.) Why? Why, if...Love is as strong as Death...why have we chosen Death to be our King? And Death's children to be our tutors and teachers, and Death's cronies to direct our governance?