Song of Solomon 8:6
“Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”
King James Version (KJV)
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Song of Solomon 8:6 is the climactic declaration of the entire Song. After the poems of longing and delight, the bride asks to be bound permanently to her beloved and then breaks into a sweeping meditation on the strength, exclusivity, and burning intensity of love itself -- the high point toward which the whole book moves.
What Does Song of Solomon 8:6 Mean?
Song of Solomon 8:6 rises to the great climax of the whole Song, declaring that love is as strong as death: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm." A seal was a personal mark of ownership and identity, pressed into clay or worn on a cord, proving that something belonged to its owner. To ask to be set as a seal upon the beloved's heart and arm is to ask to be held in the deepest place of his affection and the strongest place of his action -- never forgotten, always claimed, permanently belonging.
Then comes one of Scripture's most powerful statements about love itself: "for love is strong as death." Death is relentless and cannot be resisted; love, the writer says, is just as strong, just as unstoppable. The accompanying "jealousy" here means the fierce, exclusive devotion of true love that will not share the beloved, as unyielding as the grave. The verse then bursts into flame imagery -- love's coals are "coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." Some have heard in that final phrase the very flame of the Lord, the divine origin of love's blazing power. This is no shallow sentiment; it is love at its most fierce, faithful, and enduring. The verse exalts a love that holds fast through everything, and points to the One whose love is stronger than death itself.
In the Original Language
The Hebrew chotam means a seal or signet of ownership, ahavah means love, and qinah means jealousy or zeal -- the fierce, exclusive devotion of true love.
Cross References
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
- Romans 8:38-39
“Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.”
- Song of Solomon 8:7
“Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:8
Application
This verse calls love to be faithful, fierce, and enduring -- not a passing feeling but a bond that holds fast through everything. Aspire to love with such steadfastness, and marvel that God's own love for His people is stronger than death. Let yourself be held by a love that no power can quench, and learn to love others with the same constancy.