love: the deep attachment a heart chooses and holds to, set on a particular person or, in God's case, on his people, ranging from romantic desire to loyal devotion to covenant love.
This is the Hebrew Bible's broadest word for love as a noun. The same word covers a husband's longing for his wife, the fierce bond between friends, the everyday affection that the wise set against hatred, God's chosen love for Israel, and love itself spoken of as a power. English "love" is broad too, but this word leans in a particular direction: it names love that is chosen and directed, fixed on someone, rather than a vague good feeling.
A long debate has run through the study of this word and its matching verb: is biblical love mainly a feeling (warm affection) or mainly loyalty (faithful commitment, the kind of language ancient treaties used)? The answer now widely held is that the choice is a false one. Hebrew does not split the heart's feeling from the will's commitment, so a single word can name a love that is both deeply felt and firmly kept.
The word's range can be unsettling. It names Jonathan's devoted loyalty to David and God's everlasting love for his people, yet the same word describes Solomon's love for foreign wives that turned his heart away, and Amnon's "love" for Tamar that curdled into hatred the moment his desire was satisfied. The word names the attachment itself, for good or for ill, and the surrounding story has to tell the reader which it is.
In the Song of Songs the word reaches its height. There love is spoken of almost as a living force: a flame that floodwaters cannot quench, something as strong as death itself, not to be stirred up before its time.
Nuances
Whether the love between David and Jonathan, and David's lament that it surpassed the love of women, names the formal loyalty of a political bond, a bond that is both political and personal, or one that includes a sexual or sexual-emotional dimension.
- contestedIt is the formal language of a political and covenant bond: to "love" David is to recognize him and transfer loyalty to him as the rightful king, not to describe private affection.; J. A. Thompson, 'The Significance of the Verb Love in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel,' Vetus Testamentum 24 (1974): 334-338; P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel (Anchor Bible 9; Doubleday, 1984)
- majorityThe political and the personal are knotted together: the loyalty is real treaty language, but it is also genuine, deeply felt affection.; Susan Ackerman, 'The Personal Is Political: Covenantal and Affectionate Love (ʾāhēb, ʾahăbâ) in the Hebrew Bible,' Vetus Testamentum 52 (2002): 437-458; Walter Brueggemann, First and Second Samuel (Interpretation; John Knox, 1990)
- minorityThe comparison to the love of women, a phrase that elsewhere signals sexual love, breaks the treaty pattern and registers a sexual or sexual-emotional dimension to Jonathan's love.; Saul M. Olyan, 'Surpassing the Love of Women: Another Look at 2 Samuel 1:26 and the Relationship of David and Jonathan,' in Authorizing Marriage? Canon, Tradition, and Critique in the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions (Princeton University Press, 2006), 7-16
How to read the last word of the line about love's flames in this verse: as containing a short form of God's name, as an intensifying ending, or as a deliberate echo that stops short of naming God.
- minorityIt names God: the flame is the very flame of the LORD, making love a power that comes from and shares in the divine.; Roland E. Murphy, The Song of Songs (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1990); Marvin H. Pope, Song of Songs (Anchor Bible 7C; Doubleday, 1977)
- majorityThe ending is an intensifier, not the divine name: a raging, almighty flame, a way of saying how fierce love is.; J. Cheryl Exum, Song of Songs (Old Testament Library; Westminster John Knox, 2005); Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs (New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Eerdmans, 2001)
- contestedThe wording is deliberately ambiguous, letting the divine resonance be heard without ever naming God outright.; Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Richard S. Hess, Song of Songs (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament; Baker Academic, 2005)
Disputed
Whether love in the Hebrew Bible is at its core a felt affection or a relational loyalty modeled on ancient Near Eastern treaties.
- minorityIt is primarily covenant loyalty: a relational and political bond expressed in service and obedience, drawn from the way ancient Near Eastern treaties required a vassal to love his overlord, and not first of all an emotion.; William L. Moran, 'The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy,' Catholic Biblical Quarterly 25 (1963): 77-87; Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972)
- majorityLoyalty and affection are not opposed: the same word names a chosen, asymmetric attachment that is at once deeply felt and faithfully enacted, because Hebrew thought does not divide the heart's feeling from the will's commitment.; Susan Ackerman, 'The Personal Is Political: Covenantal and Affectionate Love (ʾāhēb, ʾahăbâ) in the Hebrew Bible,' Vetus Testamentum 52 (2002): 437-458; Jacqueline E. Lapsley, 'Feeling Our Way: Love for God in Deuteronomy,' Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65 (2003): 350-369; Bill T. Arnold, 'The Love-Fear Antinomy in Deuteronomy 5-11,' Vetus Testamentum 61 (2011): 551-569; Jon D. Levenson, The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2016)