The Greatest Song

This book - the translated Hebrew text, song, and woodcuts - is an invitation to hear the story of erotic human love as the living God would have it told. Because the story frankly treats bodily desire and sexual commitment between a woman and a man, it may not be understood at first reading. The song could be sterilized operatically or adulterated to the rhythm of an American musical. That would be prostitution of the chaste passion its melody embodies and proclaims. The woodcuts are strong, even shocking, and may mislead faultfinders or those looking for the sensational. But they hew close to the biblical message. The spirit of lust in its parasitic character befouling what is beautifully created - is honestly revealed. 

This book will have trouble being understood because all of us, believing Christians, traditional Jews and twentieth-century disbelievers, are inextricably formed within the secular mind. And the secular mind has the habit of secularizing whatever it touches. It fights the mind of Christ that tends to purify and bring things into focus. Secularly-minded men and women are not so open to the Word of God. 

The hope covering this book, nevertheless, is that the biblical text shall speak. It is too bad the Bible no longer talks our language. The solution is not to berate the Bible but learn to read its language again. To that end this literal translation is published So that by reading, listening, and intently letting the Bible's world and wisdom sift into our consciousness, by such listening, maybe believer and unbeliever will be able to hear and understand and follow the Word that gives life and direction amid the sexual mania forced upon us.

The violence of aggressive, self-serving sexuality is a curse the weaker person has always known and is a debasing reality the stronger in history have normally not been able to recognize. The Greatest Song, however, because it is the compassionate, just and forgiving God speaking, has the edge to catch anybody's attention and holds the power to change our actual lives.

Calvin Seerveld