Immediately after proclaiming that love burns with the very flame of Yahweh (Songs 8:6) the song tells us that “if one were to give / all the wealth of one’s house for love, / it would be utterly scorned” (8:7).
What does this mean? If Love is the very flame of Yah, if it is stronger than death, if it out-deeps the grave, if it is a thing that many waters cannot wash away, isn’t it the kind of thing that merits giving all the wealth of our houses for? Isn’t it the kind of thing which, by its very brilliance, would cause the multitudes of the world to pay any price for? Why is such purchasing forbidden? Why is the person who ostensibly values love so highly “utterly scorned”?
It is because, in thinking that Love is the kind of thing that wealth can buy, that person reveals they do not in fact value love as highly as they appear.
This is the fault of Cain. His is not a simple ritual error. Its not that he offered the fruit of the earth while Abel offered a slaughtered lamb. God, elsewhere in the Bible, delights in grain offerings (e.g. Lev. 2). It’s that Cain, coming without a covering of blood, offers his grain as a means of purchasing access to God. He brings his wealth to buy love. We only bring the grain offering after the sin offering, the spilling of blood (cf. Lev. 1). Cain’s offering is “scorned” like the wealth of the man who tries to buy his way to love (cf. Gen 4:5; Songs 8:7).
Donizetti’s characters stumble into this truth in L’elisir d’amore: Nemorino, frustrated and despairing, seeks to purchase love, spending all the wealth of his house, in the form of a phial of the elixir of love from Dr. Dulcamara. This results in his being “utterly scorned” —most of all by the woman whose affections he sought. It is only after he fails to buy love, only when he lays down his life for the one he loves, that loves burns with the very flame of Yah, and all the waters of his rivals far superior wealth cannot put it out.
Love comes when we keep the commandments and life is laid-down for the Other (Jn. 14:15, 15:13). Cain’s gift refused the laying-down of life, so also the one who gives the wealth of his house at the end of the Song is trying to buy his way into Love without having to endure the mistreatments of love (Song 5:7-8) and the dark night of love (Song 3:-13; 5:2-6).