INTRODUCTION.
SECTION I.—TITLE OF THE BOOK AND ITS SIGNIFICATION.
This book, which, in the present editions of the Hebrew
Bible, forms the first of the ((
Hebrew characters)) five Megiloth, or
books (viz. Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes,
and Esther), and which, with some slight variations in the
order of the Masorah, follows immediately after Job, is called
(Hebrew characters). This name, literally translated by the Septuagint,
(Greek characters), Vulgate, Canticum Canticorum, and by the
English version, Song of Songs, according to a Hebrew
mode for expressing the superlative degree by repeating the
same noun in the genitive, denotes the finest, the most beautiful,
or the most excellent Song. Compare (Hebrew characters), servant of
servants, i.e., most abject servant (Gen. ix. 25); (Hebrew characters),
holy of holies, i.e., most holy (Exod. xxix. 37; Numb. iii. 32;
Deut. x. 14; Eccl. i. 2; Hos. x. 15; Jer. vi. 28; Gesenius'
Grammar, § 119, 2; Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 318, c). Medrash
Yalkut renders it (Hebrew characters), a song more
celebrated and sublime than all songs; and also Rashi, Eben
Ezra, Rabi Samuel, Luther, and many others. The opinion
of Kleuker that this interpretation of the Rabbins is more
owing to their preconceived notion of the sublime contents of
the book than to the real meaning of these words is refuted by
Rabi Samuel himself, who, having explained this phrase by
most excellent song, does not refer to the contents of the
book for corroboration, but adduces similar constructions of
the superlative from other passages of the Bible, viz., (Hebrew characters)
