They Were Not White, Part 3: Solomon’s Bride

The woman in the Song of Songs was “black and beautiful” (Song 1:5). She is often thought of only as the Shulamite today (6:13), and many scholars assume her to be fictional.

However, from the time of Origen, readers have speculated that Solomon wrote about his actual first wife, an Egyptian, says scholar Alice Ogden Bells. She writes that the Shulamite has long been “known to be the Pharaoh’s daughter whom Solomon married.” Hints include not only the description of her skin color, but also Solomon’s line in Song of Songs 1:9: “I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.” I would like to look at the reasons why we might see the star of Solomon’s love poem as an African woman.

The Shulamite

The book of First Kings gives us clues about Solomon’s beloved, that the Song of Songs does not. First Kings 3:1 says that “Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter” (3:1). It was more than a political move, however, as Solomon gave his first wife her own palace, which took 20 years to build (I Kings 7:8). He clearly thought she was capable of handling such a gift, as well.

Why would Solomon refer to his beloved, black, and beautiful Egyptian wife as the Shulamite in 6:13? The Jewish Encyclopedia says, “Medieval Jewish exegetes…understood the word [Shulamite] as ‘the Jerusalemite,’ a feminine epithet derived from Salem (Hebrew shalem), an ancient poetic name for Jerusalem (Psalms 76:2).”

Solomon’s first wife lived with Solomon in Jerusalem (1 Kings 3:1), transplanted from her home in Egypt. She had to embrace Jerusalem as her new home. Royal Egyptian women had never before married outside of the Egyptian royal family. A Jewish woman who had always lived near Solomon might have not affectionately been called the Jerusalemite, since it would not have distinguished her. I believe it is also possible the emphasis was on shalem, within the term Shulamite, or peace, since the unusual union assured peace between two nations, Egypt and Israel.

Role Reversal

Solomon’s black bride stands out from the usual Jewish woman in ways other than birth place, as the Song of Songs captures well. Phyllis Trible notes in Ogden Bell’s Helpmates, Harlets and Heroes that the Shulamite is strong and she is vocal. Her status as wife does not define her from Solomon’s point of view. Nor does he mention childbearing. He applies none of the usual definitions of a good woman to his beloved.

Trible writes, “In this setting there is no male dominance, no female subordination, and no stereotyping of either sex.” She notes that in this way, Solomon and his bride are the image of God, male and female. Importantly, let me add, Solomon and the Shulamite also reflect the God of diversity, the God who made and embraces all colors of skin.

The (often unnoticed) image of gender equality is in contrast to the cultural laws which formed the public conscience of Jewish men and women. These expectations assured that women would tend to behave in a submissive and dependent way. A girl waited for a marriage matching her dowry, and her future lay in the character of her husband. His will created the contour of her life. Neither fathers nor rabbis taught girls the Torah. And women’s sphere of influence extended only as far as the home. Women did not usually leave home without accompaniment, nor with their hair uncovered.

Royal Power

Surprisingly, the beloved wife of Solomon has the power to reject these cultural expectations. She actively seeks out her betrothed. Like Solomon’s Lady Wisdom of Proverbs, “more often she initiates their meetings,” writes Trible. The author of Song of Songs delights in these unlady-like actions (e.g. 3:1-4):

Upon my bed at night I looked for the one my heart loves, I sought him but found him not. I called him, but he gave no answer. “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him who my soul loves.” I sought him, but found him not. The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him who my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Of course, if Solomon’s Shulamite was the Pharoah’s daughter of First Kings, she was not Jewish. A Pharaoh’s daughter would have been taught and encouraged to read. Certainly the personality of the Shulamite makes the most sense if she was used to being able to make her own decisions to some degree, as a royal Egyptian woman.

Prototype for Woman Wisdom and Proverbs 31

Solomon seems to use his intimate knowledge of the beloved Shulamite as a prototype for Woman Wisdom and the Proverbs 31 woman. The vocal Woman Wisdom in Proverbs 1, 2, 4, 8 and 9 is no less public than the Shulamite. The Woman of Valor (Hebrew eshet chayil) in Proverbs 31 also displays an active stance in the world. (Though the author of Proverbs 31 is said to be a mysterious King Lemuel in the text, Jewish wisdom and other scholars have seen him as a stand-in for Solomon.)

For example, Woman Wisdom “cries out in the street, in the squares she raises her voice, at the busiest corner she cries out” (Prov. 1:20, 21). The Proverbs 31 woman “seeks wool and flax” (31:13); she “brings her food from far away” (31:14); and she “considers a field and buys it” (31:16). Both these feminine images convey a public way of being in the world, contrary to the typical Middle Eastern woman.

Kathleen O’Connor writes, “…the woman in the Song of Songs is not only a figure of human love, but she also conjures up for the reader, the Woman Wisdom herself.” O’Connor speculates that even the early rabbis saw Solomon’s lover as a ‘strong woman’ of the Proverbs 31:10-31 sort. She writes,

In the Hebrew arrangement of the Biblical books, the Book of Proverbs, which concludes the poem in praise of the strong woman, is followed by two books about women. The first is the book of Ruth, where Ruth herself is actually identified as ‘a strong woman.’; the second is the Song of Songs. This canonical arrangement is suggestive. Did the rabbis who arranged the biblical books understand both in light of Proverbs 31:10-31?

A Real Black Woman

Here, we need to remind ourselves that this first and beloved wife celebrated in the Song of Songs, this Woman of Valor, was an African woman. Interestingly, Amazon.com lists at least 31 books on the Proverbs 31 woman. She is well-sought as a model of womanhood today. But my guess is many readers believe that our ideal woman was white, or at least, light-skinned Middle Eastern.

For Solomon, the Shulamite’s dark skin color added to her beauty. Scholar Kathleen O’Connor agrees: “Whatever the reasons that society seeks to keep the lovers apart, color seems unlikely, since color prejudice was unknown in the ancient world…”

But in an age of increasingly public and violent racism, we desperately need to see that our model Biblical woman was also likely an African woman.