Arguably the biggest blockbuster love song ever composed, the Song of Songs holds a unique place in Jewish and Christian canons as the "holiest" book, in the minds of some readers, and the sexiest in its language and imagery. This commentary aims to interpret this vibrant Song in a contemporary feminist key, informed by close linguistic-literary and social-cultural analysis. Though finding much in the Song to celebrate for women (and men) in their embodied, passionate lives, this work also exposes tensions, vulnerabilities, and inequities between the sexes and among society at large-just what we would expect of a perceptive, poignant love ballad that still tops the charts. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

I, You, and the Word "God" introduces the approach of lyrical ethics, inspired by Emmanuel Levinas's ethical-phenomenological philosophy. Through the optics of lyrical ethics, the reader discovers how the ancient erotic poems of the Song of Songs bear ethical and theological significance for contemporary readers. Levinas's intertwined concepts-oneself qua sensibility, otherness perceived through responsibility, and transcendence embodied in one's love for the other-reveal themselves as lyrical colors woven into the fabric of Song 4:1-7, 5:2-8, and 8:6. More importantly, Levinas's understanding that poetic language breaks the tautology of logocentric discourse and gestures to the outside of consciousness provides the theoretical ground for the listener to solicit meaningfulness from the Song. Through this lyrical reading of the selected poetic units, the book demonstrates that the traditional interpretive methods of representative description, narrative paraphrase, and thematic distillation fail to encounter the otherness of poetry. In contrast, lyrical ethics pays attention to that which transcends consciousness: the awakening of the reader's subjectivity, the saying underlying the said, the sound of the sense, and the invisibility of the visible. The Song so caressed reveals in human love the purposelessly purposive encounter with God.