be asher le mi. The asher contracts to she, and joins with the le, though placing a strong dagesh in the lamed. (We see this in the word shel.) See also בְשֶׁלִּי in pasuk 12. Yet even though asher becomes she, it can still exist independently. Thus, in pasuk 8, we see:
asher does not become she, but remains independent. Elsewhere we also see asher standing independently - for example, כַּאֲשֶׁר in pasuk 14. Just because asher becomes she in one place does not mean that it cannot remain asher in another place.
This should be obvious, and I apologize for belaboring the point. But now let us turn to the application.
Shir HaShirim 1:1 begins the sefer:
| א שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים, אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה. | 1 The song of songs, which is Solomon's. |
One prominent piece of evidence brought that the superscription is a later addition is a linguistic one. The first pasuk uses the full word asher - אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה. Meanwhile, in the remainder of the 8 perek book, we have occasional use of the word, but always contracted. Thus, (as Gordis notes at the beginning of his commentary - page 78)
1:6 - שֶׁלִּי
1:7-שַׁלָּמָה
5:8 - שֶׁחוֹלַת
6:5 - שֶׁהֵם, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ
6:6 - שֶׁכֻּלָּם;
etc.
But, as the pesukim in Yonah show, one need not be restricted to just one form. You can write asher and write she or sha elsewhere.
However, that is not in truth what the Biblical scholars are arguing. Rather, it is that we do not find the form asher anywhere else in the book. That is, the author of Shir HaShirim restricts himself to the contracted form, yet we find the full form in the superscription. This would seem to suggest separate authorship of the superscription.
In answer to this, I first wonder if the number of examples of the contracted form occurs frequently enough in the book to make this assertion confidentally. Perhaps had more songs been included, or had the book been 8 chapters longer, the form asher might have occurred.
Secondly, especially since many scholars assert authorship of the songs by many different authors in many different time periods, would they really say that in none of those time periods, the full form asher would not have been preferred? The claim of consistency of the short form she seems somewhat predicated on single authorship and thus consistent style, so how can one then turn around and say that there were multiple authors from multiple places, with presumably different styles?
Thirdly, this linguistic evidence appears to ignore the basic fact that the book is one of Song. Song has meter, and requires balance in terms of things such as number of words. Biblical poetry is also short - it eschews long-winded grammatical construction. The fact that the word asher, when it crops up, is made short and appended to the word, does not seem to me to be a linguistic feature of how they spoke and wrote in general, but rather a fitting to the requirements of the specific form and the keeping the meter in the specific verse. Meanwhile, the superscription, even if written by King Solomon, would still be a superscription, and not poetry, and the change of genre seems sufficient to explain the change in style. Alternatively, and more so, perhaps the keeping of the full asher is due to musical/lyrical considerations. Shir HaShirim / Asher LiShlomo makes a nice division, with two words in each subdivision. SheLiShlomo or ShelShlomo would not sound as right.
Fourthly, this ignores the fact that some of the shortenings of asher to she or sha can be explicitly seen to exist for lyrical reasons. Thus, for example, 1:6:
The alliteration of sh sounds is stressed even more by the she's leading the word, instead of being placed in the midst of a separate word.
The strange word שַׁלָּמָה in the verse 1:7:
| ה שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה, בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלִָם; כְּאָהֳלֵי קֵדָר, כִּירִיעוֹת שְׁלֹמֹה. | 5 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. |
The use of sha is absolutely necessary because of other considerations, and asher would simply not suffice. One should not draw any conclusions from its use.
Another example: 6:6:
she later in the pasuk can influence the adoption of she earlier in the pasuk, in שֶׁעָלו.
{Update, copied from my later post here:
However, that would not really account for she in the previous verse:
| א הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי, הִנָּךְ יָפָה--עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים, מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ; שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים, שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מֵהַר גִּלְעָד. | 1 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil; thy hair is as a flock of goats, that trail down from mount Gilead. |
shin or sin in the first half is matched by a shin in the second half.
}
Thus, she or sha can be required for meter, for alliterative purposes, or to construct word-play and parallels. This should perhaps cause some reconsideration in terms of assuming that the consistent use of she exists because asher would not be used, and to date a pasuk on such linguistic grounds.
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