Holy Week: The Women Prepare Burial Spices

LOOK: Myrrhbearers by Kateryna Kuziv

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LISTEN: “The Women Prepare the Spices (Song of Songs 8)” by Katy Wehr, a setting of Song of Songs 8:6–7, 13–14, on And All the Marys (2018)

O set me as a seal upon thy heart
O set me as a seal upon thine arm
For love is strong, strong as death, my love
And jealousy is cruel as the grave

Its flashes are the living flame of a blazing fire
That cannot be drowned out in a flood
All earthly gold in exchange for love
Would be utterly contemptible and scorned

Come, my love
Let me hear your voice
My companions and I wait in the garden
Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun
Like a stag appearing on the mountain

After the crucifixion of Jesus, a small group of his female followers purchased spices and prepared them to bring to the tomb to anoint his body on Sunday morning. (Sabbath restrictions prevented them from doing work on Saturday.) This was an act of love and reverence that served the practical function of counteracting the smell of decomposition.

The singer-songwriter Katy Wehr [previously] imagines the women consoling each other by singing excerpts from the Song of Songs as they crushed the myrrh, mixed it with oil, and bottled it up for transport—maybe also as they headed over to the gravesite. Wehr has set to music four of the verses from the book’s final chapter, a setting she says she hopes conveys a tone that is both mournful and hopeful.

The Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, is an ancient collection of Hebrew love poems that Christians have long read as allegorical of the love between Christ and his bride, the church.

Wehr’s selections comment on the nature of love: it is permanent, strong, passionate, inextinguishable, and priceless. The female speaker in the poem seeks to stamp herself on her lover’s heart like a seal, claiming him as hers. She professes love’s power, which is as severe and enduring as death. In the context of this passage, the word “jealousy” appears to be used in the positive sense to mean zeal or passion—a resolute devotion.

She goes on to describe love as fiery and intense.

It seems her lover has gone out for the day, or gone on a trip, and she calls him back home. She can’t wait to hear his voice again. She waits outside for him in the garden, wishing for him to come bounding back into her arms.

“Make haste, my love, and shine out like the rising sun.” One can imagine the myrrh-bearing women of the Gospels hoping beyond hope that their beloved Jesus would arise, would speak their names once more, would prove that love is indeed stronger than death.