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Song of Solomon 8 · a question people ask

"Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of the LORD" (8:6). The Song names the LORD only here. What does the verse say, and what does it leave open?

In the text

In the WEB the Song names the LORD once, and this is the verse: "a very flame of the LORD" (8:6). In the Hebrew that last word is the short form of the divine name, the only time the Song has it; the Song never has the divine name in its full form, or Elohim, God. The introduction to the Song says so, and these notes say no more about the word than that. The verse doesn't say whose flashes they are. The WEB's Its follows Jealousy, and in Hebrew its is feminine; love and jealousy are both feminine nouns there, so it may go with either, and these notes don't decide. How the Song's love is read beside the love of God is chapter 1's honest question, and these notes don't answer it here.

The verses

“Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of the LORD.”
Song of Solomon 8:6 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Song of Solomon 8

Song of Solomon 8: Love is strong as death

Right after the last charge not to awaken love (8:4), the next verse has "Under the apple tree I awakened you" (8:5), with the same Hebrew verb. And the Song's last two verses speak first to a woman and then to a man, ending with "Come away, my beloved!" (8:14), whose likeness of a gazelle on the mountains shares its Hebrew words with 2:17.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions