Category: Nahum’s Writing

Pending Publication

On By NahumIn Book of Song of Solomon, Nahum's Poetry, Nahum's WritingLeave a comment

For almost a year and a half now I have been adapting the Old Testament book The Song of Solomon to English poetic meter, and I have now completed it as a book named Meeting Jesus in the Garden: Walking with God in The Song of Solomon.  Solomon’s Song depicts the beauty of an ancient Israelite marriage between a woman (The Shulamite) and her groom (King Solomon) in all its God-given glory.  It describes what it means to know another and to be known.

In December 2022 I began writing what came to be my first draft; however, I was not pleased with the effort and so I came to write a second version that reads faithfully to the original biblical text and is easier to understand. I wrote this poem because The Song is rarely preached on and many Christians neglect to see what it has to say about what it means to walk closely with God.

I have now arrived at a place where I am comfortable publishing this feat of strength.  Turning The Song into an English poem has not been without its challenges and I spent many hours in the local Botanic Gardens, on my living room floor, and at the library penning it.  I often thought of giving up, although I am very thankful that I pushed on and reached the ‘end of the race’, so to speak, because after reading its final draft I can see how magnificent its doctrines are.

I got to the end because I kept in mind why I was writing it in the first place.  Here are my reasons for doing so:

  1. I want people to enjoy God’s presence.  God gives many gifts but the greatest of these is His own presence (Song of Solomon 2:3; Luke 10:38-42).  People want God’s presents but not His presence, a state of affairs that is all back-to-front and even idolatrous.  My book explores how restorative it is to fearlessly ‘enjoy God’s presence’ with full disclosure and freedom;
  2. To recapture an understanding and appreciation of heterosexual marriage between one man and one woman, and what being a man means in relation to being a woman.  These are things that our modern world has completely lost sight of with the emergence of homosexuality, fake ‘marriage’ between members of the same-sex, and transgenderism.  The results of this are frightening (Romans 1:18-32);
  3. To illuminate how sex and marriage are good gifts from God that He created, in spite of the perverse ways that sinners exploit such gifts through pornography, fornication, rape, adultery, sexual abuse, promiscuity, and divorce;
  4. To help readers grasp how Jesus is, even more so than King Solomon, a faithful Husband and lover to His bride, the Church.  (When I say lover, I do not mean someone who is having an illicit sexual tryst but one who deeply and sacrificially loves the object of His desire).

Now I am in the process of completing final edits and checks before I have it published.  When that happens I will let my readers know.

God bless, Nahum.

Current Writing Project – Walking with Jesus In the Garden

On By NahumIn Creative Writing, Nahum's Poetry, Nahum's Writing, WritingLeave a comment

For anyone reading this blog of mine, may 2024 be a year of pleasant surprises, joy, and a more conducive world.  Personally speaking, I am currently continuing a writing project that I commenced in December of 2022, which is committing the biblical book of The Song of Solomon to the rhyme and meter of English poetic verse (named Walking with Jesus in the Garden: Amazing Grace in The Song of Solomon).  From Dec. 2022 until around July of 2023, I penned Version 1 of the poem but was not well-pleased with my efforts; I found the first version to be overly (and unnecessarily) wordy; it was also clunky in many parts and it was not an effort that I was particularly proud of.  So from July onwards I wrote Version 2 of the poem, which I just completed writing last night.

While v.1 had around 4,500 words it was not as easy to read because I had tried to keep it to beats of 10 per line (or thereabouts).  I also was trying to put too much into the poem that did not fit its flow and meaning.   V. 2, on the other hand, has thus far ended up with 4,800 words, and yet it flows much easier because around 99% of the poem only has an average of 7-8 stressed beats per line.  There are some sections that have 10 beats per line but those are the exception rather than the norm.  I personally found Version 2 more readable and faithful to the meaning of the biblical account.  But at least the poem is now finished and all I need to do now is to make some necessary edits to 1) ensure the poem is faithful to the original biblical text; 2) to ensure that the poetic expression of the poem is flowing properly; and 3) to iron out any rough spots, such as typographical errors, punctuation mistakes, and so on.

Embarking on this project has been a challenge because I am attempting to bring holy writ alive for modern readers by expressing it in a particular form that is quite foreign to how it was originally written.  Song of Solomon was written in Hebraic poetry, not English poetry, in a world that is very different to our own.  And while I am writing about something that is very theological in its scope and essence, I am also doing so using techniques that are more creative and emotional than they are didactic and expository.  I have tried as much as is humanly possible to write a poem that is faithful to the witness of Old Testament Scripture and helping its readers to comprehend the erotic imagery behind it, while also highlighting how Jesus Christ and His church fulfils the shadows within this glorious love poem.  I’m not sure when and how I can get it published, if I ever will, but I will keep everyone posted.

God bless, Nahum.