How should we interpret the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs? Some interpreters find many cultic clues in Canticles and read it as a cultic document. This essay evaluates such an interpretation.

Beale notes the cultic affinities drawn between the garden of Eden and the temple of Israel. The word pair usually translated as "cultivate" ('abad) and "keep" (shamar) occur together in the Old Testament elsewhere referring only either to Israelites "serving" God and "guarding" (keeping) God's Word, or to priests who "keep" the "service" (or "charge") of the tabernacle.