Song of Solomon study section
Song of Solomon word studies
A handful of Hebrew words carry the theology of the Song. Tap the speaker next to any word to hear it pronounced.
Key words
אַהֲבָה (ahavah) — “Love”
Usage: Song of Solomon 2:4-5, 7; 8:6-7
Meaning: Love — deep affection, devotion, and desire. It is the great subject of the Song, culminating in the declaration that “love is strong as death.”
Theological Significance: The ahavah the Song celebrates is a good gift of God that images His own love. Its strength and unquenchable fire point to the love of Christ, who loved His bride to the end, from whose love nothing can separate His people (Romans 8:38-39), for “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
דּוֹד (dod) — “Beloved, Love”
Usage: Song of Solomon 1:13-14, 16; 2:16; 5:10
Meaning: A term of endearment, “beloved” or “lover,” and also “love” itself. The bride calls her lover “my beloved” throughout the Song.
Theological Significance: The intimate belonging expressed in “my beloved is mine, and I am his” voices the covenant bond of love. In the fuller light of Scripture it pictures the mutual belonging of Christ and His church, who is loved as His own body and cherished as His bride (Ephesians 5:29-30).
רַעְיָה (ra’yah) — “My Love, Darling”
Usage: Song of Solomon 1:9, 15; 2:2, 10; 4:1, 7
Meaning: A tender term for a beloved woman, “my love,” “my darling,” “my companion.” It is the beloved’s favorite name for his bride.
Theological Significance: The delight and cherishing expressed in ra’yah honor the beloved as unique and treasured. It reflects the way Christ regards His church, calling her beautiful and without flaw, presenting her to Himself “in splendor” (Ephesians 5:27).
חוֹתָם (chotam) — “Seal”
Usage: Song of Solomon 8:6
Meaning: A seal or signet, worn on the person as a mark of ownership, identity, and belonging. The bride asks to be set as a seal upon her beloved’s heart and arm.
Theological Significance: To be a chotam is to belong wholly and permanently, secure in another’s love. Believers are “sealed” by the Holy Spirit as those who belong to Christ, marked as His own and kept for the day of redemption (Ephesians 1:13; 4:30).
גַּן (gan) — “Garden”
Usage: Song of Solomon 4:12, 15-16; 5:1; 6:2
Meaning: A garden — a place of beauty, fruitfulness, and delight, and in the Song an image of the bride and of the intimacy of love, “a garden locked.”
Theological Significance: The garden evokes Eden, where God made man and woman for one another, and points to the restored delight of the new creation. It frames covenant love as a protected, fruitful place of joy, a foretaste of the paradise regained in Christ (Genesis 2; Revelation 22).
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