Texts in Conversation
Sumerian love poetry like the Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi pictures the man's hands embracing his lover, an ancient Near Eastern image of sexuality. Song of Solomon uses similar physical gestures to express love.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
The Courtship of Inanna and Dumuzi
Inanna Prefers the Farmer
Ancient Near East
Inanna spoke: “I bathed for the wild bull; I bathed for the shepherd Dumuzi. I perfumed my sides with ointment; I coated my mouth with sweet-smelling amber; I painted my eyes with kohl. He shaped my loins with his fair hands. The shepherd Dumuzi filled my lap with cream and milk. He stroked my pubic hair; he watered my womb. He laid his hands on my holy vulva. He smoothed my black boat with cream; he quickened my narrow boat with milk; he creased me on the bed. Now I will caress my high priest on the bed; I will caress the faithful shepherd Dumuzi. I will caress his loins, the shepherdship of the land. I will decree a sweet fate for him.”
Date: 1900 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Song of Solomon 2:6
Song of Songs
Hebrew Bible
5 Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. 6 His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me. 7 The Beloved to the Maidens: I admonish you, O maidens of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and by the young does of the open fields: Do not awaken or arouse love until it pleases!
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Notes and References
... Another reference that sometimes is interpreted as implying genital contact is the refrain in 2:6 (and parallel in 8:3): ‘His left hand is under my head, / and his right hand embraces me’ (NKJV). As noted above, however, this may constitute a wish and not reality. So translates the RSV and NRSV: ‘O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me!’ Further (or alternatively), in contrast to a similarly worded Sumerian love song (‘Dumuzi-Inanna Songs,’ translated by Yitschak Sefati [COS 1.169:541]), where the woman requests that the man place his left hand and his right hand at her nakedness (i.e., her genitals), in the biblical Song ‘the right-hand–left-hand dyad only implies affection and support, not genital stimulation’ (Garrett, ‘Song of Songs,’ 152) ...
Davidson, Richard M.
Flame of Yahweh: Sexuality in the Old Testament
(p. 597) Hendrickson Publishers, 2007
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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