"SOLOMON'S CEDAR CHARIOT"

From Song of Solomon 3:9, "King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon."

Often the "cedars of Lebanon" are mention in the O.T. Thus, the reference to "...a chariot of the wood of Lebanon" could be interpreted as "cedar."

HAS ANYONE DONE ANY RESEARCH OR STUDY RE "SOLOMON'S CEDAR CHARIOT?"

Thanks for your input.
Bobbye

Morganite

There is little to go on, but the passage is capable of different interpretation that the usual English rendering o'f' 'chariot', and the wood could have been something else than cedar, although that is very unlikely.

Chariot comes from 'appiryown which could have been a sedan, a litter, a palanquin or bed, or a chariot.

The following verse gives other details of its construction, and suggests that it was not an ordinary vehicle but, if a vehicle at all, a canopied one such as is used in Jewish weddings even today. The verse say that its middle was 'paved with love.' However, love is the theme of the Song, even though it is romantic love in a mildly pornographic setting.

Song Of Solomon 3:10

He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof gold, the covering of it purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

When we restore your verse to its context, we get a different picture. That of a suitor (?) approaching on a palanquin with a host, or better still, on a bed.

Song Of Solomon 3:6
6 ¶ Who [is] this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?

Song Of Solomon 3:7
7 ¶ Behold his bed, which [is] Solomon's; threescore valiant men [are] about it, of the valiant of Israel.

Song Of Solomon 3:8
8 They all hold swords, [being] expert in war: every man [hath] his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.

Song Of Solomon 3:9
9 King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.

Song Of Solomon 3:10
10 He made the pillars thereof [of] silver, the bottom thereof [of] gold, the covering of it [of] purple, the midst thereof being paved [with] love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.

Song Of Solomon 3:11
11 Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.

Paved with love, probably means inlaid with or embroidered wiht a figure reprsenting love.'

So paradoxical do these combinations appear that scholars still have difficulty envisaging the biblical picture of Solomon's throne or bed beneath a sheltering pavilion supported by cedar poles and mounted on a wagon;

See:

Jacques Winandy, "La Litière de Solomon," Vetus Testamentum 15 (1965): 103-10.

On the flying throne, August Wünsche, Salomons Thron und Hippodrom, Abbilder des babylonischen Himmelsbildes (Leipzig: Pfeiffer, 1906).

The Persian world-capital is Hvaniratha, the cosmic hub of the "loud-moving chariot," the real city being built on the plan of the wheel; Jürgen Trumpf, "Stadtgründung und Drachenkampf," Hermes 86 (1958): 139.

See especially Werner Müller, Die heilige Stadt: Roma quadrata, himmlisches Jerusalem und die Mythe vom Weltnabel (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1961), 101, 127-34.

Throne, temple, and holy city have often been identified; H. P. l'Orange, Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World (New York: Caratas, 1982), 9-17, 51-62, and so forth.




MORGANITE

Bobbye

Thanks, Morganite.

Great info. Thanks for the explanation and references.

Bobbye