The reading of the Song of Songs as being an allegory of Christ and the Church is quite old, but this is understood as a deeper meaning than the literal meaning. The Song of Songs really is love poetry between two human lovers.
The meaning here is quite literal: They have been out in the sun, and so their skin got darker. The natural physiological response of the skin when being exposed to ultraviolet radiation, unless you are like me and only exist in two colors: extra pale and bright hot burning pink.
-CryptoLutheran
From Peter Pett:
"At first sight the song appears to be a simple love song between a young maiden and her beloved. But when we consider it in more depth there are indications that it goes deeper than that, for there are certain pointers which indicate that when he wrote it Solomon had in mind the relationship of God with His people and the acceptability of his forthcoming Temple in Jerusalem as the center of Israel’s worship. This suggestion is accentuated by the fact that God elsewhere speaks of His relationship with His people in similar terms.
For example in Jer 2:2 He says, ‘
Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus says the LORD, I remember in regard to you the kindness of your youth, the love of your espousals, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land which was not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord, the firstfruits of His increase.’ Here we have the initial idea of Israel as a young maiden seeking her Lord as a lover in the wilderness with a view to marriage, which is the theme of Solomon’s song (chapters 1-2). It may well be that Jeremiah had the song in mind.
In Jer 31:3-4 God says to Israel,
‘I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore with covenant love have I drawn you. Again I will build you up, and you will be built, Oh virgin daughter of Israel’. Here the LORD declares that Jerusalem as the daughter of Israel is like an unmarried young lady on whom He has set His love. We can compare with this the following words in Deu 7:6-8, ‘
for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD has chosen you to be a people for His own possession, out of all the peoples which are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set His love on you and chose you, for you were the least of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you, and is keeping the oath to your fathers.’
In Jer 31:32 the LORD says that His proposed new covenant will be, ‘
not like the covenant which I made with your fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke even though I was their husband.’ Here the covenant is described as a marriage covenant between the LORD and Israel, which was broken by the wife even though he was her husband, an idea which has some similarity to Son 5:3-5. We can compare with this the words of Isa 54:5, ‘
for your Maker is your husband, -- for the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off.’ Here we have the scenario of the forsaken wife who is called back to Him, as in the song (chapter 5 onwards). Note also the words of Isa 61:10, ‘
He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and a bride adorns herself with her jewels.’
In Hos 2:2 the LORD says of Israel, ‘
Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband’, which was immediately after He had said to them ‘you are not my people’, indicating that she had been but was so no longer. This thus indicates that He sees Israel as having been His wife, but is on the point of not seeing her in that way any more. (In Isa 50:1 He makes clear that He has not yet done so). Again in Son 2:14-15 He says, ‘
therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her, and there I will give her her vineyards, and make the valley of Achor a door of hope, and there she will answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.’ This is similar to Solomon’s allurement of the young lady which takes place in the wilderness (for after it she comes from the wilderness). Compare also Jer 2:19, ‘
And I will betroth you to me for ever, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the LORD.’
