English Art/Literary Religion About the book of Song of Solomon

Allegorical interpretation. The sensuous descriptions in this book have provided motivation to read the Song of Solomon as an allegory, namely, as an ***extended picture*** of the love between Israel’s God and his people, and then between Christ and his bride (either the church or the individual soul). This approach, in fact, dominated exposition of the book until the nineteenth century. The limitation of such an approach, however, is that it runs the risk of diminishing the wisdom character of the Song of Solomon and its endorsement of God’s good work of creation as evidenced in marital love. But even though virtually all scholarly interpreters today see the book primarily as a celebration of love and the gift of sexual intimacy, some would add that the Song of Solomon—by showing the pure and passionate love of the man and the woman in the story—can also enable believers to appreciate more deeply the intensity of the spiritual love-relationship between God and his people (as, e.g., this is further reflected in the picture of marriage depicted by Paul in Eph. 5:22–33).

What is the sense of "extended" here? Does it mean "broad" in this case?