The plain meaning of the love Song is allegorical, unlike every other book of TaNaK.
The Eternal God, blessed be he, is likened unto the lover "Dodi" and the beloved is Israel. This is clear in the prophetic typology of the bridal paradigm, found many other places in TaNaK such as Hosea 2, "I will betroth you to me foreover".
The Messiah the son of David, Solomon.
The city of Jerusalem, the Shulamit.
The interpretation offered by Christianity that the Shulamit is the Church, denies the plain meaning of the text. (It is also unsupported by anything in the New Testament, least of all by the book of Revelation where the allegory appears again its traditional Jewish interpretation, with the 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes gathered, and Jerusalem as bride, and declares "Blessed are those called to the wedding supper.")
Moreover, the presumption to have superceded and replaced Israel and the Jewish people, usurping their role as "Shulamit", has deprived pious gentiles of their rightful place in this story as the "Daughters of Jerusalem". This commentary will analyze those verses which in which both pious gentiles and idolatrous gentiles are allegorized. This offers the former a more authentic way to find themselves within the story, and one which although more humble and lowly, is realizable in our world, and therefore infinitely more joyful and delightful than the empty and addictive mysticism offered by the church. As the Shulamit says to her Beloved "Among the upright, they have loved you". It is true, and may this bear witness.
dEmendation yields “Bring me, O king, to your chambers.”The king has brought me to his chambers.-d
Let us delight and rejoice in your love,
Savoring it more than wine—
eUnderstanding mesharim as related to tirosh; cf. Aramaic merath.Like new wine-e they love you!
Where do you pasture your sheep?
Where do you rest them at noon?
Let me not be as one who strays-c
Beside the flocks of your fellows.
To a mare in Pharaoh’s chariots:
To your spangles of silver.
So is my darling among the maidens.
O daughters of Jerusalem—
Like the tents of Kedar,
Like the pavilions of Solomon.
Because the sun has gazed upon me.
My mother’s sons quarreled with me,
They made me guard the vineyards;
My own vineyard I did not guard.
By gazelles or by hinds of the field:
Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!
Its back of gold,
Its seat of purple wool.
Within, it was decked with love
By the maidens of Jerusalem.-e