Bible Commentaries

I:1 THE Song of Solomon, WHICH IS BY SOLOMON

FIRST SONG

The first time the lovers were together at the royal palace (in or near) Jerusalem

( Song of Solomon 1:2 to Song of Solomon 2:7)

FIRST SCENE:

Shulamith and the Daughters of Jeruzsalem

( Song of Solomon 1:2-8)

Shulamith

2 ¹Let him kiss me with kisses² of his mouth,

³for better is thy love than wine!

3In fragrance thine unguents are good;⁴

⁵an unguent⁶ poured forth is thy name,⁷

therefore virgins love thee.

Shulamith and the Daughters of Jerusalem (in responsive song).

4Draw me!—after thee will we run!—⁸

⁹The king has brought me into his chambers!¹⁰

We will exult and be glad in thee,

will commend¹¹ thy love beyond wine!—

Rightly¹² do they love thee!

Shulamith

5 ¹³Black I Amos, but ¹⁴comely, ye daughters of Jerusalem,

as the tents of Kedar, as the tent-cloths of Solomon.

6 Look¹⁵ not at me, because¹⁶ I am dusky,¹⁷

because the sun has scorched¹⁸ me;

¹⁹my mother’s sons were angry²⁰ with me,

made me keeper of the vineyards;—

mine own vineyard I have not kept.²¹

(Looking around for Solomon)

7 ²²Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, where²³ feedest thou?

where makest thou (thy flock) to recline at noon?

For²⁴ why should I be as one straying²⁵

by the flocks of thy companions?

Daughters of Jerusalem

8 ²⁶If thou know not,²⁷ fairest among women,

go forth in the footprints of the flock

and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

SECOND SCENE:

Solomon and Shulamith

( Song of Solomon 1:9 to Song of Solomon 2:7)

Solomon

9 To my horse²⁸ in Pharaoh’s chariots

I liken²⁹ thee, my dear.³⁰

10 Comely are thy cheeks with chains,³¹

thy neck with beads.³²

11Chains³³ of gold will we make thee

with points³⁴ of silver.

Shulamith

12 ³⁵Whilst the king is at his table,³⁶

my spikenard yields its fragrance.

13 A bundle³⁷ of myrrh is my beloved³⁸ to me,

that lodges between my breasts.

14 A cluster of the cyprus-flower³⁹ is my beloved to me,

in the vineyards of Engedi.

Solomon

15 ⁴⁰Lo! thou art fair, my dear,

lo! thou art fair; thine eyes are doves.

Shulamith

16 ⁴¹Lo! thou art fair, my beloved, yea sweet;

yea our couch is green.⁴²

17 The beams⁴³ of our houses are cedars,

our wainscot⁴⁴ is cypresses.⁴⁵

II:1. ⁴⁶I am (only) a wildflower of Sharon,

a lily of the valleys.

Solomon

2As a lily among thorns,

so is my dear among the daughters.

Shulamith.

3 ⁴⁷As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood,

so is my beloved among the sons.

In his shade delighted I sit.

and his fruit is sweet to my palate.⁴⁸

4He has brought me into the wine-house,

and his banner over me is love.

5 Stay me with pressed grapes,⁴⁹

refresh⁵⁰ me with apples,

for I am sick of love.

6 His left hand is under my head,

and his right embraces me.

7 ⁵¹I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,

by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,⁵²

that ye wake not, and that ye waken not

love till it⁵³ please.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. For the explanation of the title, see the Introduction, § 1and § 3. To the view of those who assign Song of Solomon 1:2-4 entirely to the “daughters of Jerusalem,” and suppose the words of Shulamith to begin with Song of Solomon 1:5 (Hitz, Vaih. and others, so too Del.) stands opposed—1. That the wish “to be kissed with the kisses of his mouth” could scarcely have been expressed by the ladies of the court, or even by one of them, without filling Shulamith with indignation, of which, however, she shows nothing in what follows2. That the way in which the lover is extolled in Song of Solomon 1:2-3, agrees perfectly with the fond encomiums and enthusiastic descriptions which Shulamith subsequently, Song of Solomon 1:13 ff, and Song of Solomon 2:3 ff, bestows upon her loSong Song of Solomon 1:3. That the interchange of the 1 sing. and the 1 plur. plainly points to a diversity of persons speaking, or to an alternation between a single speaker and a whole chorus. This latter circumstance likewise renders their assumption impossible, who (as Ew, Hengstenb, Weissb. and most of the older interpreters) suppose that the whole of Song of Solomon 1:2-7 is spoken by Shulamith. Undoubtedly Shulamith and the ladies of the court here respond to each other in speech or song; yet not so that only the words “Draw me after thee ... chambers” Song of Solomon 1:4 a belong to Shulamith, and all the rest to Song of Solomon 1:5 to the “women of the harem” (so Renan), but simply that all that is in the singular is to be regarded as spoken by her alone, and all that is in the plural by her and the ladies together, so that in particular נרוצה (we will run) and נגילה וגו (we will be glad, etc.) are to be assigned to the ladies who confirm the words of Shulamith by joining in them themselves, while אהרידמשבני (draw me after thee), הביאני המלך חדריו (the king has brought me into his chambers) and מישרים אהבוך (they rightly love thee) belong to Shulamith alone⁵⁴ (comp. Döpkein loc.) Then Song of Solomon 1:5-7 unquestionably belong to Shulamith alone; Song of Solomon 1:8 again to the ladies of the court, who reply with good-humored banter to the rustic simplicity and naivetê with which she has expressed Song of Solomon 1:7 her desire for her royal lover; Song of Solomon 1:9, ff. to Song of Solomon, who now begins a loving conversation with his beloved, reaching to the close of the act.⁵⁵ During this familiar and cosy chat, which forms the second scene of the Acts, the chorus of ladies withdraws to the back-ground, but without leaving the stage entirely; for the concluding words of Shulamith Song of Solomon 2:7 are manifestly directed to them again, and that not as absent, but as present on the stage. The place of the action must be supposed to be some locality in the royal palace or residence in or near Jerusalem, some one of the “king’s chambers” (חדרי המלך) Song of Solomon 1:4; whether precisely the “room devoted to wine parties,” the “wine-room of the royal palace” (Del.), cannot, as it seems, be certainly determined from the repeated reference to the excellence of wine ( Song of Solomon 1:2; Song of Solomon 1:4), nor from the mention of the “house of wine” (בית היין2:4); and even the “table” of the king spoken of Song of Solomon 1:12 does not afford a perfectly sure support to this opinion. Only it appears to be certain from Song of Solomon 1:16-17 that we must imagine the scene to be open outwards, and to afford a prospect of fresh verdure and stately trees, such as cedars, cypresses, etc. It must therefore have been either a room in the king’s palace upon Zion immediately adjacent to parks or gardens, or what in view of Song of Solomon 6:2-3 (comp. Song of Solomon 4:16) is still more probable, an open summer-house (or pavilion) in the royal pleasure gardens of Wady Urtas, south of Jerusalem, near Bethlehem and Etam, in those magnificent grounds of David’s splendor-loving Song of Solomon, which probably bordered upon Zion itself, and thence extended southward for several leagues, and of which there still remains at least a grand aqueduct, with three basins lying successively one above another, the Song of Solomon -called “pools of Solomon” (comp. K. Furrer, Wanderungen durch Palästina, Zürich, 1865, p178, etc.; C. Hergt, Palästina, p278, etc.;Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, III:1, p64, etc.). That Shulamith had formed a personal acquaintance with the royal gardens in the neighborhood of Jerusalem directly after she had been brought from her home in the north of Israel to Solomon’s court, is shown by her mention Song of Solomon 1:14 of the “vineyards” or “vine-gardens of Engedi,” near the Dead Sea, five or six German miles south-east of Jerusalem, from which however the conclusion must not be drawn that these pleasure-grounds of Engedi formed the scene of the action in the opening of the piece; see on that verse. Weissbach very properly locates the second scene of the Song from Song of Solomon 1:9 onward in the gardens of Solomon near Jerusalem, but puts the action of Song of Solomon 1:1-8 somewhere on the way to this retreat, where Shulamith in her search for her lover chances to meet the women of Jerusalem. But in opposition to this may be urged—1. That there is nothing in the context to indicate a change in the locality between Song of Solomon 1:8-17. The mention of the “king’s chambers” in Song of Solomon 1:4 certainly implies the immediate vicinity of a royal palace, and probably the presence of the speaker in it3. It by no means follows from the metaphors borrowed from pastoral life, in which Shulamith speaks of her lover, Song of Solomon 1:7 that she thought he was really to be found in a “pasture ground,” and engaged in feeding sheep4. With as little propriety can it be inferred from Song of Solomon 1:8 that Shulamith is represented as wandering about over the country and “accompanied by some little kids, searching for her lover in or near Jerusalem.”⁵⁶

2. First Scene. Shulamith. Song of Solomon 1:2-3.—Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.—יִשָּׁקֵנִי—for which Hitzig needlessly reads יַשְׁקֵנִי, “let him give me to drink,” etc. (comp. Song of Solomon 8:2)—is manifestly the utterance of a wish, “O that he would kiss me;” and its subject is not פִּיהוּ, “his mouth,” which is too remote and manifestly stands in a genitive relation to נְשִׁיקוֹת “kisses;” nor מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת, equivalent to “one of his kisses” (Ewald, E. Meier), for “a kiss kisses not but is kissed, and מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת includes an accusative” (Hitzig). The speaker’s lover is rather thought of as the kissing subject, the same, whom in the vividness of her conception she immediately afterwards in b and in Song of Solomon 1:3 addresses in the second person, as though he who is so ardently longed for were already present.⁵⁷ The partitive מִן properly points to but one or a few kisses of her lover as the object of the beloved’s wish; comp. Genesis 28:11; Exodus 16:27; Psalm 132:11, and generally Ew, Lehr., § 217, b, 294, c. [Green’sHeb. Gram., § 242, a]; J. H. Michaelis, in loc, “uno tantum vel altero de osculis.”—”Kisses of his mouth”⁵⁸ are, moreover, in contrast with the idolatrous custom of hand-kisses, or kissing the hand to any one ( Job 31:27; comp. Del, in loc.), tokens of honest love and affection between blood relations and friends ( Genesis 29:11; Genesis 33:4; Genesis 41:40; 1 Samuel 10:1; 1 Samuel 20:41; comp. Psalm 2:12), and especially between lovers ( Proverbs 7:13). It is not likely that the similarity of the words נשקkiss and שקהdrink gave occasion to the comparison in b of caresses with wine (Weissb.); this comparison is of itself a very natural one; comp. Song of Solomon 4:10; Song of Solomon 5:1; Song of Solomon 8:2.—For better is thy love than wine.—דדִֹים different from דַדַּיִם “breasts, paps” (which the LXX here express by μαστοί, and the Vulg. by ubera [so Wic, Cov, Dow.]), as well as from דוֹדִים plur. of דוֹד “beloved” ( Song of Solomon 5:1), denotes manifestations of love, caresses, φιλοφροσύναι (comp. Song of Solomon 4:10-11; Song of Solomon 7:13; Proverbs 7:18; Ezekiel 16:8; Ezekiel 23:17), i.e., dalliance, exhibition of אַהֲבָה ( Song of Solomon 7:7; Song of Solomon 8:6), fond endearments, (in bad taste Vaih, “Liebelei,” flirtation.) In the comparison of such love with wine, the tertium comparationis is, as is shown by the parallels Song of Solomon 4:10 ff.; Song of Solomon 5:1; Song of Solomon 7:9, ff. not the intoxicating power of wine, but primarily its sweetness⁵⁹ only; comp. Acts 2:13. The figure of intoxication indicates a higher grade of loving ecstasy than is here intended, comp. Song of Solomon 5:1 b; Proverbs 5:19; Proverbs 7:18, and in general Weissb, in loc.

Song of Solomon 1:3. In fragrance thine unguents are good.—לְרֵיחַ, “in respect to odor, as to fragrance,” limits טוֹבִים, “good” (comp. Joshua 22:10; 1 Kings 10:23; Job 32:4), and is emphatically placed at the beginning of the sentence. Commonly: “to the smell,” or “for the smell,” against which, however, lies the twofold objection: 1, that רֵיחַ denotes not the organ of smell, nor the act of smelling, but the odor which any thing exhales (odor, halitus), comp. Song of Solomon 1:12; Song of Solomon 2:13; Song of Solomon 4:10; Song of Solomon 7:14; Hosea 14:7, etc.; 2, it is not לָרֵיחַ, but simply לְרֵיחַ. Hitzig’s construction is quite too artificial; he connects3 a with2 b as its sublimitation, and translates “thy caresses are more precious than wine with the odor of thy precious ointment” (comp. the like mode of connection adopted in the Vulg, “ubera—fragantia unguentis optimis” [so Coverdale, Doway]). So also is that of Weissbach, “thy ointments are good to serve as a perfume,” where too much is evidently foisted into the simple לְרֵיחַ.⁶⁰—An unguent which is poured forth is thy name.—The comparison of a good name with a fragrant unguent is also found, and on the basis of this passage in Hosea 14:7-8; Ecclesiastes 7:1; Sirach 49:1. The ideas of smelling and being (or being named, bearing this or that name) are, as a general fact, closely related through the intermediate notion of breathing, respiring; comp. in German “Gerücht, ruchbar.”⁶¹ That the name of the lover is thus compared to a costly perfume diffusing a wide fragrance (comp. Mark 14:3; John 12:3) plainly indicates that it is only the renowned King Song of Solomon, an actual possessor of שֵׁם (name, i.e., fame, gloria—comp. Proverbs 22:1; 1 Kings 1:47; Job 30:3), who can be thought of as this lover, and not a simple country swain (so Weissb. properly against Herd, Umbr, etc.).—Therefore virgins love thee—i.e., not barely on account of this thy renown, but on account of all the excellencies celebrated in Song of Solomon 1:2-3. Observe that עֲלָמוֹת is without the article. It is not the virgins universally, but simply virgins, such as Shulamith herself, or the “daughters of Jerusalem,” the ladies of Solomon’s court, by whom she sees herself surrounded, that she describes as lovers, as reverential admirers of the graceful, brilliant and lovely king. The guileless country lass, who has but recently been transferred into the circle of the countless virgins of the royal court (comp. Song of Solomon 6:8) here accounts to herself for the fact that many other virgins besides her are attached to the king with admiring devotion and love; comp, 4. e.

3. Shulamith and the daughters of Jerusalem.

Song of Solomon 1:4. Draw me after thee—as it is to be translated with the Targ, Luth. and most of the recent expositors, connecting contrary to the common accentuation אַחֲרֶיךָ with מָשְׁכֵנִי, which requires it as its proper complement;⁶² comp. Hosea 11:4; Jeremiah 31:3. By this drawing is meant, as appears from b, a drawing into the king’s chambers, or at least into immediate proximity to him, not a conducting out of the palace into the country, as the advocates of the swain-hypothesis suppose, who see in these words an ardent call upon her distant lover.—We will run—i.e., not, “let us take flight, and hasten hence” [so Ginsburg: “Oh, let us flee together!”], as though here again there were a cry for help to her absent lover; but: “we will hasten to him,” viz.: the gracious king; a lively exclamation uttered by Shulamith, and at the same time by the chorus of the daughters of Jerusalem catching the word from her.—The king has brought me into his chambers—a simple expression of the virgin’s rapturous joy at the high honor and delight granted her by the king. As the words stand, they contain neither an indirect petition or complaint addressed to her distant lover (to which the following clauses of the verse would agree poorly enough), nor a wish directed to the king—as though the preterite הֱבִיאַנִי were to be taken in the sense of a precative or optative: “O that the king had brought me into his chambers” ( Song of Solomon, e.g., Hug, Weissb.), nor finally a condition dependent on the following נָגִילָה וגו (so Hahn, who supplies אִם, if, before הֱבִיאַנִי. “If the king brings me into his chambers, we will,”⁶³etc. Furthermore, the “king’s chambers” are by no means simply identical with the harem, the house of the women belonging to the royal palace (Vaih, Ren, etc.); this would rather have been designated בֵּית הַנָּשִׁים, as in Esther 2:3; Esther 2:9, ff, or simply called בית, house, as in 1 Kings 7:8; 1 Kings 9:24; Psalm 68:13, etc. They are 2 Samuel 4:7; 2 Samuel 13:10, the king’s own rooms in the palace, his sleeping apartments and sitting-rooms, penetralia regis, in distinction from those of his wives and the ladies of the court, which formed a particular division of the royal palace. Comp. 1 Kings 7:8; Esther 2:12-14. Into these the king’s own innermost apartments, Shulamith, as the favored object of his special love, had been repeatedly brought,—nay, she has in them her own proper abode and residence. She had therefore a perfect right to say: “The king has brought me into his chambers.”⁶⁴—We will exult and be glad in thee.—With these words, which recall Psalm 31:7; Psalm 118:24; Isaiah 25:9; Joel 2:21; Joel 2:23, the ladies of the court again chime in with the language of Shulamith, in order to commend with her the happiness of belonging to the number of those who were loved by the king. בָּךְ, in thee, belongs in equal measure to both verbs; comp. Isaiah 65:19.—We will celebrate thy love more than wine.—Comp. Song of Solomon 1:2.—Rightly do they love thee.—The most obvious construction is to make the virgins again the subject, as in 3 c, and consequently to regard Shulamith as again the speaker. But the 3 d plur. might also be taken impersonally (they, i.e., people generally love thee. Comp. יָבֻזוּ, they despise, Song of Solomon 8:1), and then the clause might be spoken by the entire chorus. מֵישָׁרִים, an adverbial accusative (as, e.g., פְּלָאִים, wonderfully, Lamentations 1:9), means neither “without reserve” (Weissb.), nor “sincerely” (Gesen, Del.) [so Noyes; Eng. Ver. marg.: uprightly], but, as appears from the context and the parallels Psalm 48:2; Psalm 75:3, “with good reason, rightly” (Ew, Hitzig, Vaih, etc.). This word is taken as the subject by the Sept. (εὐθύτης), Vulg. (recti diligunt te), Hengstenb. (rectitudes, i.e., abst. for concrete, the upright love thee), Umbr. (O favorite of all the virtues), etc. [so Eng. Ver, Thrupp, Wordsworth, Withington, Ginsburg], interpretations as ungrammatical as they are unsuited to the connection. The attempts at emendation proposed by Velth, Schelling, Augusti, are altogether unnecessary⁶⁵ (see Weissb, in loc.).

4. Shulamith. Song of Solomon 1:5-7.

Song of Solomon 1:5. Black I Amos, but comely.—The explanation of the fact that she was black (שְׁחוֹרָה) contained in the following verse shows that by this blackness can only be meant her being browned by the hot sun. Then too in Lamentations 4:8 the substantive שְׁחוֹר denotes only the livid or swarthy appearance of one who has suffered long from famine and wretchedness, and in this very passage the strong expression “black” is qualified by the diminutive “blackish” (שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת) in the verse immediately following.—Moreover, the whole statement before us was occasioned according to Song of Solomon 1:6, by the curious looks with which Shulamith had meanwhile been regarded by many of the daughters of Jerusalem and probably also by jeering remarks which they had made (comp. Song of Solomon 1:8). “But comely” [Taylor: attractive, engaging] (נָאוָה., lit, “agreeable”); the plain country maid hereby expresses with frank, straightforward simplicity her consciousness that nevertheless she was not altogether unworthy of the love of Solomon. There is no vain self-laudation in the words.—As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.—The first of these comparisons is designed to illustrate and set before the mind the idea of blackness, the second that of comeliness or elegance. “Kedar is a Bedawîn tribe near Palestine in the Arabian desert, Genesis 25:13; Isaiah 21:17, which is here named in preference to all others, simply because the name קֵדָר seems originally to denote “blackness.” Tents of poor Bedawîns, which are always exposed to the heat of the sun, must certainly appear blacker and less attractive than those of Solomon; and we need not therefore with other interpreters (see especially Hitz. and Weissb. who refer to the observations of modern travellers as della Valle, Burckhardt, Harmer, Volney, etc.,) have recourse to the tents now commonly covered with black goat skins, as Shulamith only has in mind the blackness caused by the sun’s rays. But Solomon’s tents as a figure of the greatest elegance can only correspond to נָאוָהcomely. We may without difficulty assume that the splendor-loving Solomon adopted the custom of oriental monarchs of living in tents once in the year in some charming district and in the utmost elegance and splendor (comp. the remarks above, Song of Solomon 1:1, respecting the pleasure grounds at Etham and Engedi.) It is, therefore, wholly unnecessary to understand by יְרִיעוֹת (with Del, Hitz, etc.,) tapestry,⁶⁶ which is neither permitted by usage nor by etymology, from יָרַעcontinuit, prop. velum, then tent-cloth.” We shall have in the main to abide by this explanation of the passage given by Ewald, although we might assign to יְרִיעָה a different etymology, and derive it perhaps with Gesenius from יָרַעto tremble, flutter, or with Weissb. from יָרַעto be bad, i. e., of coarse, inferior workmanship. The two comparisons are in any case understood in quite too artificial a manner by the latter and by several others, who assume that both the tents of Kedar and the tent-coverings of Solomon set forth the peculiar combination of dark color with attractiveness in Shulamith’s looks (for which an appeal is made to the testimony of travellers like D’Arvieux, Shaw, etc., according to whom a plain filled with the black tents of the Bedawîn presents a very pleasing and even beautiful spectacle.) In opposition to Böttcher’s view, who though he assigns the words “Black am I, daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar” to the “vinedresser,” i.e., to Shulamith, refers the rest (“but comely” and “as the tent cloths of Solomon”) to an “elderly princess,” who looks with astonishment at the new comer, comp. Hitz. in loc., who properly rebukes the extravagance of the dissecting mania here exhibited.

Song of Solomon 1:6. Look not at me because I am dusky, because the sun has scorched me. There is nothing in the context to indicate that the “look” is one of approval, in admiration of her beauty⁶⁷ (versusBöttcher, Hitz, etc.) Comp. above on Song of Solomon 1:5. My mother’s sons were angry with me.Velth, Umbr, Ewald needlessly think of step-brothers or half-brothers; the passages adduced for this purpose Leviticus 18:9; Leviticus 20:11 : Deuteronomy 23:2, etc., are outweighed by many others as Genesis 27:29; Psalm 50:20; Psalm 69:9; Deuteronomy 13:7, where “mother’s sons” corresponds in the parallelism to “brothers,” and consequently is entirely synonymous with it. And this expression is the less surprising in Shulamith’s mouth since like a true Hebrew daughter she is in the habit of denominating everything after her mother; comp. “my mother’s house,” Song of Solomon 3:4; Song of Solomon 8:2, and so too Ruth 1:8. We need not even assume that she would intimate a less favorable judgment of her brothers as more or less strange or distant in their bearing to her (Rocke, Hitz.); and there is still less to justify the assumption that her brothers are by this expression emphatically designated as Shulamith’s own brothers-german (vs.Magnus.) Yet it may with considerable probability be inferred from the expression before us, that Shulamith’s father was no longer living at the time of this transaction, and her brothers had assumed the prerogatives of a father (comp. Genesis 34:5, ff.; 2 Samuel 13:20 ff.), but that her mother meanwhile was still living, which also seems to be favored by Song of Solomon 6:9, ( Song of Solomon 8:2; Song of Solomon 3:4).—Made me keeper of the vineyards. This manifestly does not assign the reason of her brothers’ anger, nor is this intimated in the following clause (vs. Hengstenberg and E. Meier), it is rather passed over in silence as irrelevant. But this clause tells what her brothers did in consequence of their anger, and then the last clause states what further happened to her when degraded into a vineyard-keeper.—Mine own vineyard I have not kept.—The addition of שֶׁלִּי not only gives a special emphasis to the suffix in כַּרְמִי, but distinguishes the vineyard of Shulamith here named as quite distinct and of another sort from those of her brothers, which she had been obliged to keep ( Song of Solomon 8:12). It is a vineyard of a higher and more valuable kind, which alas! she had not carefully guarded. She herself with all that she has and is, must be intended by this vineyard of her own (comp. Del. and Weissb. in loc.), or it may be her beauty (Ew, Döpke, Magn, Heiligst, Hitz, Vaih.),—at all events every thing that she had to surrender to Solomon and devote to him when she became his beloved and followed him. There is, in these words, no serious lament for her lost virtue (on the contrary see Song of Solomon 4:12-16) or for her forsaken lover (as Böttcher, Meier and tentatively also Vaih.); but they contain a lament half in jest or with mingled sadness and irony for her forfeited freedom, for which she constantly longs in spite of her attachment to her royal lover. In favor of this double meaning of “vineyard” may also be urged the etymology of כֶּרֶם, which agreeably to its derivation from the root כרם, signifies the “noblest,” the “most valued possession,” the “highest good,” (comp. Hosea 2:17; Isaiah 5:7; Psalm 16:6, as well as Ewald and Hitzigin loc.).

Song of Solomon 1:7. Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, where feedest thou? To this dreamy exclamation of longing desire for her still absent lover, the close of the preceding verse forms a thoroughly appropriate introduction. Despoiled of her freedom and her beloved home she can only then feel happy amid the new and splendid objects which surround her, when he from love to whom she has forsaken all and to whom her whole heart belongs, is actually close beside her. הַגִּידָה לִּי “inform me” not “cause me to be informed,” for הגיד always denotes an immediate declaration or announcement. This expression would manifestly be less suited to an address to a far distant lover. The paraphrase of the idea דּוֹדִי by the fond circumlocution “whom my soul loveth” is found four times beside in the beautiful section Song of Solomon 3:1-4.—Shulamith represents her royal lover as “feeding” and then as “reclining” (or more exactly as “causing to recline,” viz., his flock) simply because, as a plain country girl, she supposes that she can directly transfer to him the relations and occupations of country life, and hence assumes that the king may now be somewhere in the fields with his flocks, and have sought with them some shady resting-place as a protection from the hot noon-day sun. That Solomon was just then residing in his pleasure grounds near Jerusalem, that is to say in the country, might favor this artless conception of hers (comp. above on Song of Solomon 1:5.) But the assumption of Weissbach is needless, that Solomon was then actually engaged in the over-sight of his flocks ( Ecclesiastes 2:7) like Absalom and his brothers who, according to 2 Samuel 13:23, ff, were accustomed to manage the sheep-shearing themselves, and to convert it into a merry-making. Nothing further is to be sought in the expressions before us, than a ready trope from pastoral life, and consequently one of those criteria which mark this poem as at least a partially idyllic or pastoral drama (comp. Introduc. § 1, Rem3). That Joseph’s going to the pasturage of his brethren, Genesis 37:15-16, was what specially suggested the present figurative representation is too far-fetched, though asserted by Hengstenberg, and connected with his allegorical mode of interpretation. Parallels for this “reclining at noon” may better be adduced from the figurative language of the prophets, as Isaiah 49:10; Psalm 23:2; Ezekiel 34:13-15, or even from the ancient classics, as Theocritus, Id., Song of Solomon 1:14-15; Song of Solomon 6:4; 25:216: Horace, Od., III:29:21; Virg. Georg. III:324 ff.⁶⁸

For why should I be as one straying?etc.כְּעטְֹיָה is very variously explained. עָטָה “to cover” is commonly regarded as its theme, and it is accordingly translated “as one veiled” [so Eng. Ver. margin] i.e., as a harlot, Genesis 38:14-15 (Rosenm, Del.) [so Thrupp, Burrowes, Noyes]; or as “one ashamed, veiled through shame” (Umbreit, Döpke, Hengstenberg), or “as one unknown” (Ewald, Heiligst, who compare the Arab. غطىobscurus fuit, occultavit) [Williams: as a stranger], or “as a mourner,” (so some of the older commentators, as R. Solomon ben Melek, [Ainsworth] after 2 Samuel 15:30). [Weiss.: Muffled up as eastern women always were when exposed to the eyes of strangers, and as a shepherdess subject to insolent and injurious treatment from the shepherds, comp. Exodus 2:16-19]. But the signification “cover” can no more be proved for עטה, than that of “pining away,” which Schultens (Op. Min. p240), Rocke and others have sought to establish for the word. The Vulgate (ne vagari incipiam), Symmach. (ὡς ῥεμβομένη), Syr. and Targ, favor the meaning of wandering or straying, which is admirably suited to the context; [Clarke: as a wanderer; one who not knowing where to find her companions wanders fruitlessly in seeking them.] In proof of it we shall not need Böttcher’s emendation כְשׂטְיָה (“as a country-stroller”), but simply Hitzig’s assumption that עֹטְיָה by a transposition of the ע is for טוֹעָה (= תּוֹעָה comp. Genesis 37:15); comp. ערף = רעף, עטף = Arab. ضعفetc., (a view as old as Kleukerin loc., who with S. Bochart actually proposes to read כְטֹעְיָה). The following expression “by the flocks of thy companions” is closely connected with this idea as the more exact limitation of the “straying.” The “straying by the flocks of the king’s companions,” is nothing but a figure of speech for remaining among the throng of ladies in the royal court without the presence of the king himself; and that is just the veritably desolate and forlorn condition, from which Shulamith wishes to be released by the return of her lover. Hitzig arbitrarily explains the wandering of a wandering of her thoughts; and still more arbitrarily Weissbach seeks to give to עטה (with the following עַל for אֶל) the sense of “laying hands upon, purloining” (“that I, by the flocks of thy companions, be not regarded as one who will lay hands upon them,” and for that reason is sneaking about them watching his opportunity.)

5. The daughters of Jerusalem.

Song of Solomon 1:8. If thou know not, fairest among women,etc. This address (lit. “the fair (one) among the women.” compare [Green’sHebrew Grammar, § 260, 2 (2)], Ewald, Lehrbuch, § 513, c) which is also used Song of Solomon 5:9; Song of Solomon 6:1 by the “daughters of Jerusalem” in speaking to Shulamith, does not prove that the counsel here given “to follow the tracks of the flocks and pasture her kids beside the shepherds’ huts” is a seriously meant exhortation to Shulamith to return to the condition of a shepherdess, or a friendly direction to her on her way to the royal flocks (Weissb.). This language is evidently an “answer adapted to the narrow range of thought implied in Shulamith’s question (which must necessarily appear foolish to the ladies of the court) and hence an unmeaning one, after which the fair shepherdess knew neither more nor less than she did before” (Del.). It is therefore jeeringly intended, and if it did not exactly wound her deeply, it was certainly adapted to increase Shulamith’s longing for her lover.—אִם־לֹא תֵדְעִי means neither “if thou do not know thyself” (Sept, Luth.), nor “if thou art deficient in understanding” (Ewald, Hitzig, etc., who appeal to Isaiah 1:3; Isaiah 56:10, passages not appropriate in this connection), but conformably to the similar passage, Song of Solomon 6:12, “if thou know not,” viz.: where thy lover feeds, this object being readily supplied from the context.—צְאִי־לָךְ בְּעִקְבֵי הַצֹּאן “go out at the heels of the flock,” i.e., go after it, follow its tracks, comp. Judges 4:10; Judges 5:15. יָצָא therefore denotes here, as the Hiphil in Isaiah 40:26; 2 Samuel 5:2, going forth with the flock, not going out of the palace (Vaih, etc.).—“Thy kids,” i.e., the kids which as such an enthusiastic admirer of country life, and a shepherd’s occupation you must certainly have. That she actually had some with her (Weissb.) by no means follows from this expression.

6. Second Scene. Song of Solomon, Song of Solomon 1:9-11. The king has now returned from the engagements, which had hitherto detained him from his women, and he begins a tender conversation with Shulamith, who is favored by him above all the rest; during which the others withdraw into the background. Comp. No1, above.

Song of Solomon 1:9. To my horse in Pharaoh’s chariots, literally: “to my mare;” for סוּסָה can scarcely stand collectively for סוּסִים “horses, a body of horse,” (Vulg. “equitatui;Hengstb, Weissb, etc.), and there is nothing to justify its being pointed לְסוּסֹתַי (Magn, Hitz.). The singular לְסוּסָתִי evidently refers to a favorite mare of the king (comp. Zechariah 10:3), to a particularly fine, and splendidly caparisoned specimen of those τέσσαρες χιλιάδες θήλειαι ἵπποι, which according to 1 Kings 10:26, Sept, Solomon had for his chariots; and more exactly to such a steed used on state occasions in Solomon’s “Pharaoh-chariots,” i.e., in those costly Pharaonic spans of horses, which according to 1 Kings 10:28-29, he had imported from Egypt. Solomon compares his beloved to this mare of his, harnessed and magnificently decorated before stately Pharaoh-chariots (not exactly before one of them, Vatabl.), and that “on account of her youthful bloom and her unaffected demeanor, whose lovely charms are still further heightened by the simple ornaments worn upon her head and neck, Song of Solomon 1:10-11” (Del.). The point of the comparison is not to be sought exclusively in the proud bearing of the horse, Job 39:19, etc. (Ewald, Vaih, etc.), any more than in the glittering ornaments of his head and neck. In opposition to Weissb, who thinks merely of the latter, and referring to Hartmann’sHebräerin am Putztische, (Hebrew woman at her Toilet), Olearius“Persische Reisen” (Travels in Persia), etc. [see also Harmer’sOutlines, p205, and the illustrations of a bride’s dress, in Calmet’sDictionary] maintains that there was a marked similarity between the ornaments of pearls and chains worn by horses and by women in the East, and consequently by Shulamith in the present instance, it may be said that according to Song of Solomon 1:11 Solomon now first proposes to adorn his beloved with the proper gold and silver ornaments, and therefore she did not yet wear a burdensome head and neck ornament like a richly bridled mare.⁶⁹—My dear; comp. Song of Solomon 1:15; Song of Solomon 2:2; Song of Solomon 4:1, etc., where the same familiar form of address recurs.

Song of Solomon 1:10. Comely are thy cheeks in chains.תּוֹר kindred with דּוֹר, טוֹרetc., is equivalent to a circle, ring; in the plural consequently it denotes a chain composed of many rings, which goes around from the head under the chin, by which therefore the cheeks are encircled. Shulamith may not have brought this ornament together with the necklaces named in b (חֲרוּזִים kindred with הרש, חרט, little disks of metal or corals pierced and strung together) with her from the country, but may have received it as a present from Solomon since her coming to the royal court. Song of Solomon, however, is not satisfied with this simple ornament, but promises her, Song of Solomon 1:11, much richer and more splendid jewels,—scarcely with the view of alluring her and binding her to his court (as even Del. supposes) but simply to adorn yet more handsomely one who is so lovely, and to have his full pleasure in her as a magnificently attired princess.⁷⁰

Song of Solomon 1:11. Chains of gold—with points of silver. Needlessly, and quite too artificially, Weissb. will have us understand by the נְקֻדּוֹת הַכֶּסֶף something similar to the חֲרוּזִים little disks of silver pierced and strung together, which might be worn along with the gold chains. But עִםwith by no means requires this explanation (comp. Song of Solomon 4:13): it rather leads to the far more natural assumption that the golden chains were dotted with silver “punctis argenteis distincti” (Hitzig).⁷¹

7. Shulamith Song of Solomon 1:12-14.

Song of Solomon 1:12. Whilst the king (is) at his table, my spikenard yields its fragrance. If these words were to be translated: “whilst the king was at his table, my spikenard yielded its fragrance” (Rosenmueller, Ewald, Hengstenb, Vaih, Weissb, etc.), they could only mean: “as long as Solomon was absent, and did not burden me with his attentions, I was happy in the memory of my friend;” they would accordingly bear an emphatic testimony to the correctness of the herdsman or shepherd-hypothesis; for that the “fragrance of the spikenard” is to be taken literally and explained of the costly nard-oil on Shulamith’s hair and garments, which had been as it were suppressed and far exceeded by the coming of her lover with his much more delightful fragrance (Weissb.) is a very far-fetched explanation of these simple words.⁷² They are rather to be taken as referring to the present, because the fact of there being no הָיָהwas in the protasis makes against the preterite sense of נָתַןgive⁷³ (comp. Hitz. in loc.) and because מֵסַב does not properly mean table, but rather company, festive assembly (comp. the adverbial use of the word in the singular, 1 Kings 6:29, and in the plural, 2 Kings 23:5; Job 37:12) and consequently points to the place where the king then was, to the women’s apartment of his palace or park in contrast with his former stay in the fields, with the soldiers, on the chase, or elsewhere. The fragrance of Shulamith’s nard is accordingly a figurative designation of the agreeable sensations or delightful feelings produced in her heart by the presence of her lover (comp. Del.: “it only emits again that fragrance, which it has absorbed from his glances”), a representation which by no means sounds too refined and courtly for this simple country girl, this child of nature, which therefore Hitzig very needlessly puts (as well as Song of Solomon 1:13) into the mouth of an enamored court lady as a voluptuous piece of flattery for Solomon.⁷⁴ For נֵרְדְּ, which must here denote not a stalk of the well-known Indian plant Valeriana Jatamansi (Magn, Böttcher), but the aromatic unguent prepared from it, and that as poured out, and consequently emitting its fragrance, comp. Winer, R. W. B. Art, “Narde.” [Smith’sDictionary of the Bible, Art. Spikenard. Kitto’sBiblical Cyclopedia, Art. Nerd].

Song of Solomon 1:13. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me. Evidently an advance upon the figure of the fragrant nard. The royal lover, who now rests upon Shulamith’s bosom, is compared by her to a parcel of the costly myrrh-gum such as the ladies of the East are in the habit of carrying in their bosom. צְרוֹר הַמּרֹ is not a bunch [so Noyes] or sprig of myrrh (Ewald, Delitzsch, etc.) for there is no more evidence of any aromatic quality in the branches and leaves of the myrrh tree than there is of its occurrence in Palestine at all. We must therefore think of a bundle or box (not exactly a flask, as Weissb. proposes, contrary to the meaning of צְרוֹר) of semi-fluid, or fluid myrrh gum, and must besides compare the use of this gum as an unguent, which is vouched for also in Song of Solomon 5:5; Song of Solomon 5:13; Esther 2:12; Exodus 30:28. On the carrying of boxes of ointment by Hebrew women, comp. also Isaiah 3:20; Job 42:14, and Hartmann, die Hebräerin am Putztische II, p280 f.

Song of Solomon 1:14. A cluster of Cyprus is my beloved to me.כֹּפֶרSept.: (κύπρος here and Song of Solomon 4:13) is the Cyprus flower or Alhenna, which is indigenous to India, and probably to Egypt (Pliny, H. N. xii24) and may have been transplanted by Solomon in his vineyards at Engedi (on which comp. No 1 above) for the sake of the peculiarly strong odor of its yellowish-white, grape-like clusters of flowers. [See Harmer’sOutlines, pp218–221; Shaw’sTravels, pp113, ‘4: Sonnini’sVoyage, pp291–302]. Comp. in respect to the fondness of oriental women for this aromatic plant the testimony of a recent traveller in the “Ausland,” 1851, No17. “The white Henna-blossoms, which grow in clusters and are called Tamar-henna, have a very penetrating odor, which seems disagreeable to the European who is unaccustomed to it; but the Orientals have an uncommon liking for this odor, and prefer it to any other. The native women commonly wear a bouquet of Tamar-henna on their bosom.” The Hebrew name of this plant might with Simonis and others be derived from כפר to cover, with allusion to the custom which prevails among Oriental women of staining their finger nails yellow with Henna powder, but it is more natural to refer כֹּפֶר as well as κύπρος and the Lat. cuprum to the Sanskrit root cubh, “to shine, be yellow,” whence cubhra. The exact parallelism between Song of Solomon 1:13-14, and in general the intimate connection of Song of Solomon 1:12-14, with their figures taken without exception from the region of vegetable aromas further yields decided testimony against Hitzig’s division of the passage as though Song of Solomon 1:12-13, belonged to one of the women of the Harem, and only Song of Solomon 1:14 to Shulamith.

8. Song of Solomon, Shulamith, Song of Solomon 1:15-17.

Song of Solomon 1:15. Lo! thou art fair, my dear. The fond ardor, with which she has just spoken of her lover, has doubled the expressive beauty of her features. The perception of this leads Solomon full of rapture to praise her beauty.—Thine eyes are doves,i.e., not “thine eyes are doves’ eyes,” as though (like Psalm 45:7; 1 Kings 4:13, Ezra 10:13) the const. עֵינֵי were to be supplied; and the dove-like simplicity and fidelity of Shulamith’s eyes were to be brought into the account as the point of comparison (Vulg, Syr, Ibn Ezra, Vat, Gesen, Del, etc.), [Eng. Ver.]; but as is shown both by the context and the parallel passage, Song of Solomon 5:12, “thine eyes resemble the lustrous and shimmering plumage of doves,” wherein more particularly the white of the eyes is compared to that of the body, and the lustrous iris to the metallic lustre of the neck or wings of the dove (comp. Psalm 68:14). Correctly therefore the Sept.: ὀφθαλμοί σου περιστεραί, and in the later times Targ, Rashi, Hengstenberg, Hitzig, etc.) [So Hodgson, Williams, Fry, Thrupp, etc.].

[Will, Gins. connect this adjective with what follows: “Lovely is our verdant couch”].—Yea, our couch is green, lit.: “greens, grows green” (רַעֲנָנָה) a reference to the stately, verdant, and refreshing natural surroundings, in the midst of which to their delight their loving intercourse now takes place, and perhaps more particularly to a shady grassplot under the trees of the park, upon which they were for the moment sitting or reclining; comp. § 1above, and Weissb. in loc. In opposition to Hengstenb, who takes עֶרֶשׂ in the sense of “marriage-bed,” and רַעֲנָן in a purely figurative sense of a gladsome and flourishing condition, may be urged that no mention can be made of a marriage-bed for Shulamith and Solomon before their nuptials, which are not described until Song of Solomon 3:6, etc.; likewise the contents of the following verses, especially Song of Solomon 2:1-3, which point to a continued stay of the lovers in the open air, under shady trees, and beside fragrant flowers.⁷⁵

Song of Solomon 1:17. The beams of our houses are cedars, our wainscoting cypress-trees. This can neither be the language of the “choir of women belonging to the harem” (Böttcher), whose entrance here would be to the last degree disturbing; nor even of Solomon (Hitzig, Weissb, Ren.) to whom the beauty of the place where they are, is a matter of perfect indifference, by reason of the rapture with which he regards his beloved; but only that of Shulamith, the innocent, light-hearted child of nature, who has just begun to express her pleasure in that lovely spot in the open air, to which her lover had conducted her, and whose words would sound quite unfinished and end abruptly if nothing further were added to the commendation of their verdant couch.—”Cedars” and “cypresses,” also named together Isaiah 14:8; Zechariah 11:2, as costly species of wood for building and stately, lofty trees, are here evidently meant in the literal sense, of living trees of this description, such as were to be found, along with other rare and noble plants, in the royal gardens of a king so skilled in nature and so fond of splendor. The figurative part of her language lies rather in the “beams” and the “wainscoting” (רָחִיטִים from רהט = Ar. جرط “to hew,” hence = laquearia of the Vulg, wainscoting on walls and ceilings—not. “pillars,” Weissb, nor “rafters,” Vatabl. and L. Cappell, [so E. V.], nor “floor,” Hengstenberg, who prefers the K’ri רָהיטִים). She, who had hitherto been without Solomon in the showy apartments of the palace, felicitates herself that she can now rest with him under the green trees of the garden, which seem to her to arch over them a far finer ceiling than those richly adorned halls. It is impossible to reconcile the mention of cedars, which only grew wild in Lebanon, not in central or northern Palestine, and consequently not in the vicinity of Shunem, with the shepherd hypothesis, whose advocates here find expressed Shulamith’s longing for the verdure and shade of her home (e.g.Ewald, Vaih.).

For the DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL comments, see Song of Solomon 2:7 ff.

Footnotes