Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them.
Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, on which a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men.
Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.
Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.
You are all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you.
Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards.
You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.
How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine, the fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!
Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
My sister, my bride, is a locked up garden; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.
Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits, henna with spikenard plants,
spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,
a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon.
Awake, north wind, and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 8, 9, 11, 15, 16 He hath respect to the multitude of the faithful,…
He hath respect to the multitude of the faithful, which are many in number.
Because Christ delighteth in his Church, he commendeth all that is in her.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Son 4:1 Behold, thou [art] fair, my love; behold,…
Son 4:1 Behold, thou [art] fair, my love; behold, thou [art] fair; thou [hast] doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair [is] as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.
Ver. 1. Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair.] Thou art, thou art; and I am much taken with it, so that I cannot but set an Ecce admirantis Behold, wonder at it, upon it. I am so rapt and ravished; yea, I would that others also should behold it, and be enamoured with it. As the Church called upon her daughters of Zion, in the last verse of the former chapter, to go forth and see her Bridegroom in all his bravery, and to help to crown him; so here interchangeably, Christ calls upon all sorts to contemplate his beautiful bride in all the "comeliness that he hath put upon her," {Eze 16:14} and that crown of twelve stars that he hath set upon her head, {Rev 12:1} so that "in everything she is enriched by him, and cometh behind in no gift." {1Co 1:5; 1Co 1:7}
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Thou hast doves’ eyes.] Particularly Christ commendeth her eyes, hair, teeth, lips, temples, neck, and breasts. He that would praise another, is careful to take in whatsoever of him may be thought praiseworthy. Christ only is able to give his Church her due commendation; because he only "knows all men, and needeth not that any should testify of man, for he knoweth what is in man." {Joh 2:24-25} All others that shall undertake such a business had need say, as Mr Bradford the martyr saith of that peerless King Edward VI; So many things are to be spoken in commendation of God’s graces in this child - who yet was but one of those many that make up the Church; but yet such a one, that as he was the chiefest, so I think the holiest and godliest in the realm of England, saith the same blessed Bradford - that as Sallust writes of Carthage, I had rather speak nothing than too little, in that too much is too little. {a} An exact face, saith Pliny, is seldom drawn but with great disadvantage; {b} how much more when a bungler hath it in hand? In which regard Alexander the Great forbade his portraiture to be painted by any other than Apelles, or to be carved by any other but Lysippus, men famous in those faculties. Behold here one that goes far beyond them both (the greatest artisan in the world), pencilling out to the life, and setting forth a complete character of his dearest spouse, whom he had "in his heart to die and to live with," {2Co 7:3} as the high priest had the twelve tribes, {Exo 28:29} and St Paul his Corinthians, though "the more he loved, the less he was beloved." {2Co 12:15} But to come to her particular praises - "Thou hast doves’ eyes," that is, fair, full, clear, chaste. {See Trapp on "Son 1:15"} Eyes the true Church hath, and those both opened and enlightened. {Act 26:18} She cries not up ignorance as the mother of devotion, neither doth she send forth blind guides, to require blind obedience, as the Popish Padres do with their novices; to put out the eyes of those poor misled and muzzled ignoramuses, and to lead them blindfold into the midst of their deadly enemies, as Elisha did the Syrians into Samaria. The Church here described hath (as Solomon’s wise man) her eyes in her head; yea, she hath two eyes, when the rest of the world hath but one (as the Chinese vainly brag of themselves), {c} a praise proper to the Church of Christ. She lifteth not up her eyes unto idols, {Eze 18:6} but to the Holy One of Israel, {Isa 17:7} her eyes are doves’ eyes. Every child of Christ’s Church hath a spiritual eyesight, an insight into the mystery of Christ, communication of Christ’s secrets, "the mind of Christ." {1Co 2:16} She hath no blind children; for, though born blind, yet Christ hath anointed them with his eye-salve, {Rev 3:18} and given both light and sight. But by "eyes" here we are chiefly to understand pastors and ministers, those "seers," as they were called of old, {1Sa 9:9} those "lights of the world," {Mat 5:14-16} "burning and shining lights," {Joh 5:35} as the Baptist was called, whose office is to be to God’s people "instead of eyes," {Num 10:31} and "to open the eyes of the blind, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God," &c. {Act 26:18} And these are to have doves’ eyes, seeking to present unto Christ every man chaste and pure in the simplicity of the gospel. {2Co 11:2-3}
Within thy locks.] Seemly tied up and covered, as the word imports, without pride or affectation; not laid out, as the manner is, of vain and unshamefaced women, but thick, fair, and modestly made up, to show the Church’s modesty and humility, which is the knot of every virtue, and ornament of every grace, as St Peter’s word, εγκομβωσασθε, holds it forth. {1Pe 5:5}
Their hair is as a flock of goats, &c.] They are fat and well liking; and so their hair lay smooth, slick, and shining. By the Church’s hair here may be meant the community of true Christians, that, being as the hair innumerable, do adhere to Christ as to their head, and have a promise that not one hair of that sacred head shall fall to the ground; and that if any son of Belial shall offer to shear or shave them, he shall answer it as dearly as the Ammonites did the like abuse done to David’s ambassadors. {2Sa 10:3-4}
{a} Serm. of Repent., 37.
{b} Pic ores pulchram absolutamque faciem raro nisi in peius effiingunt.
{c} Description of the World, Chap., Of China.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–16 These and the following words are evidently spoken by…
These and the following words are evidently spoken by the Bridegroom to and concerning his spouse.
Thou art fair, not in thyself, but by my beauty, being clothed with my righteousness, and adorned with all the graces of my Spirit, which I acknowledge to be in thee.
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Thou art fair; he repeats it, both to confirm the truth of his assertion, and to show the sincerity and fervency of his affection to her.
Thou hast dove’s eyes; thou art harmless, chaste, &c., as appears by thine eyes, which commonly discover the temper of the mind or person. See more of this phrase Son 1:15. And whereas the beauty of the spouse is here described in her several parts, we need not labour much about the application of each particular to some distinct member or grace of the church, this being the chief design of this description of a bride which is beautiful in all points, to show that completeness and absolute perfection which the church hath in part received, and shall more fully receive from Christ in the future life. Yet because the church is a body, consisting of divers members, and enriched with variety of gifts and graces, I know no reason but the several parts of this description may have a more special regard to one or other of them. And so her eyes may here note, either,
1. Her teachers, who are instead of eyes to her, as the phrase is, Num 10:31, whence they are called seers and guides, &c. Or,
2. The disposition of her mind or heart, which is compared to the eye, Mat 6:22,23, and is oft discerned in the eye.
Within thy locks; which being decently composed, make the eyes appear more amiable: withal this intimates the modesty of her looks; her eyes are not wanton, and wandering, or lofty, but sober, and humble, and confined within their proper bounds, looking directly upon her husband, not looking asquint upon other lovers, nor minding other Gods or Christs. If the eyes signify teachers, the locks may note the people assembled together to hear their teachers, to whom they are a great ornament when they thrive by his teaching.
Thy hair; the hair of thine head, which is a great ornament to the female sex, 1Co 11:15. This hair may signify either,
1. The inward thoughts and meditations; or rather,
2. The outward conversation and visible fruits of holiness, which do greatly adorn the professors and profession of religion, as hair doth the head, as is implied, 1Ti 2:9,10; 1Pe 3:3-5.
As a flock of goats; which are comely and orderly in going, Pro 30:29,31, and afford a goodly prospect. Or rather, as the hair (which word is here to be understood, as appears both from the comparison itself, and from divers places where goats are put for goats’ hair, as it is in the Hebrew text, Exo 25:4; 26:7; 35:26) of a flock of goats, which in these parts was of extraordinary length, and thickness, and softness, and comeliness, and much more like to the hair of a man or woman than the hair of our goats is, as is evident both from Scripture, as Gen 27:16; 1Sa 19:13; and from the testimony of other ancient writers, as Apulcius, Martial, &c.
That appear from Mount Gilead; that feeding there, or coming down thence, or going up thither, show themselves evidently to those who stand below it, or near them. Or, as it is rendered in our margin, and by others, that eat, or graze of, or upon. He mentions it as a very fruitful place, and fit for the breeding of all sorts of cattle, as is manifest from Num 32:1; Jer 1 19; Mic 7:14; and especially of goats, partly because it was a hilly and woody, country, and partly because it abounded with resinous, and oily, and gummy trees, as appears from Gen 37:25; Jer 8:22; 46:11, wherewith the goats are much delighted, as Dioscorides observes. And some affirm that the hair of these goats was commonly of a yellow colour, as may seem probable from 1Sa 19:13,16, compared with 1Sa 16:12, and from Son 7:5; which also was in ancient times esteemed a beauty in men or women, as the learned know.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 Christ commends his church, for her beauty, ver. 1-7.…
Christ commends his church, for her beauty, ver. 1-7. He calls her to go with him, ver. 8. Manifests his love and affection for her, ver. 9. A farther commendation of her, ver. 10-15. She prays for the effectual operation of his Holy Spirit on her to make her fruitful, ver. 16.
Behold - These words are evidently spoken by the bridegroom. Fair - Being clothed with my righteousness, and adorned with all the graces of my spirit. Fair - He repeats it both to confirm his assertion, and to shew the fervency of his affection. Dove's eyes - Whereas the beauty of the spouse is here described in her several parts, we need not labour much about the application of each particular to some distinct grace of the church, this being the chief design of the description to shew that compleatness and absolute perfection which the church hath in part received, and shall more fully receive in the future life. Goats - Which in these parts was of extraordinary length, and softness, and comeliness. Mount Gilead - A very fruitful place, fit for breeding all sorts of cattle, and especially of goats, because it was an hilly and woody country.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 The bridegroom's description of his bride, her person, her
CHAPTER IV
The bridegroom's description of his bride, her person, her
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accomplishments, her chastity, and her general excellence,
1-16.
NOTES ON CHAP. IV
Verse 1. Thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks] Perhaps this refers rather to a sort of veil worn by many of the Eastern women, but especially in Egypt. It is a species of black cloth made of the hair of some animal, probably the black goat; is suspended from the head by silken cords, one of which comes from the crown of the head, down the forehead, to the upper part of the nose, just under the eyes, at which place the veil begins; for the forehead and the eyes are uncovered, except the cord above mentioned, which is ornamented with gold, silver, and precious stones, according to the circumstances of the wearer. This partial veil not only covers all the face, the eyes and forehead excepted, but the neck also, and hangs loosely down over the bosom. One of them, lately brought from Egypt, now lies before me.
But the clause, within thy locks, מבעד למתך mibbaad letsammathech, is not well translated, either by ourselves or by the versions. Jerome's translation is an indication of the meaning: Absque eo quod intrinsecus latet; without that, or independently of that, which lies hidden within. The Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic have, besides thy silence. Calmet contends that none of these gives the true meaning, and that the word tsemath has not the meaning of hair or locks wherever it occurs, and has quite a different meaning in Isa 47:2. St. Jerome on this place expresses himself thus: Nolentibus qui interpretati sunt transferre nomen quod in Sancta Scriptura sonat turpitudinem.-Ergo tsammathech, quod Aquila posuit, verenda mulieris appellanatur cujus etymologia apud eos sonat sitiens tuus. Calmet translates: Vous etes toute belle, won amie; vous etes toute belle: vos yeux sont des yeux de colombe; sans ce que la pudeur et la modestie tiennent cache. I leave the translation of these to the learned reader. See another description under So 4:7.
As a flock of goats] Because it was black and sleek, as the hair of the goats of Arabia and Palestine is known to be; which, with its fine undulation, is supposed to bear some resemblance to the curls or plaits of a woman's tresses. The mountains of Gilead were beyond Jordan, on the frontiers of Arabia Deserta.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 Son 4:1. Behold — These words are evidently spoken…
Son 4:1. Behold — These words are evidently spoken by the bridegroom; thou art fair — Being clothed with my righteousness, and adorned with all the graces of my Spirit. Behold, thou art fair — He repeats it both to confirm his assertion, and to show the fervency of his affection. Thou hast dove’s eyes — Whereas the beauty of the spouse is here described in her several parts, we need not labour much about the application of each particular to some distinct grace of the church, it being the chief design of the description to show that completeness and absolute perfection which the church hath in part received, and shall more fully receive in the future life. Thy hair is as a flock of goats — That is, as the hair of a flock of goats, which in these parts was of extraordinary length, softness, and comeliness; that appear from mount Gilead — A very fruitful place, fit for breeding all sorts of cattle, and especially of goats, because it was a hilly and woody country.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 16 Thou hast doves’ eyes ... - Thine eyes are…
Thou hast doves’ eyes ... - Thine eyes are doves behind thy veil. So also in Son 4:3; Son 6:7; Isa 47:2, “veil” is better than “locks.”
That appear from ... - Or, “that couch upon Mount Gilead.” The point of comparison seems to be the multitudinousness of the flocks seen browsing on the verdant slopes of the rich pasture-lands Num 32:1; Mic 7:14.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–16 How. Christ again praises the beauty of his Church.…
How. Christ again praises the beauty of his Church. (Worthington) --- The dialogue takes place in the country. (Haydock) --- From corporal beauty, which is often dangerous, and the portion of the most dissolute, we must raise our minds to spiritual advantages, which the Holy Ghost has here in view. --- Within. St. Ambrose, "besides thy taciturnity." Septuagint, "silence." Rabbins, &c., "hair." Protestants, "within thy locks." But what renders this version of tsammathec (Haydock) suspicious is, that none of the ancients knew of it, and the hair is afterwards specified, chap. vi. 4. Moreover, Isaias, (xlvii. 2.) uses it for (Calmet) "turpitude," (St. Jerome) or the parts which are usually "covered." (Septuagint) (Haydock) --- Si qua latent, meliora putat. ([Ovid?] Met. 1500.) --- All the glory of the king’s daughter is within, Psalm xliv. 14. Modesty and silence are the best encomium. (Calmet) --- The Lord praises the intention, occupations and doctrine of the Church, the twins of faith and good works; the preaching of Christ’s passion without shame, (ver. 3.) and the administration of the sacraments, which, like the neck, unite the members to their head; so that they become invincible, (ver. 4.) whether they be of Jewish or Gentile extraction, ver. 5. (Worthington) --- Up. Hebrew and Septuagint, "appear." Jerusalem was the highest part of the country; (Haydock) and coming up and down often means no more than coming or going, Judges xi. 3., and xv. 11. (Calmet) --- The hair of goats in Lycia was beautifully curled. (Ælian xvi. 30.) --- Women used such false hair. (Martial xii. 45.) --- Though the hair be only an ornament, it is not to be neglected; so the pious Christian will always treat with respect the ceremonies established chiefly for the instruction of the ignorant. (Calmet) --- Those simple and fervent souls, by their numbers, adorn the Church, as hair does the body. (St. Gregory) --- The external and internal perfections of the spouse deserve commendation. (Menochius)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 3. Solomon to Shulamith at the wedding entertainment, Son_4:1-6.
3. Solomon to Shulamith at the wedding entertainment, Son_4:1-6.
Son_4:1. Lo, thou art fair, my dear, etc.—The verbal correspondence of this praise of Solomon’s beauty with Son_1:15 is designed as in Son_6:4 (and so in Son_6:10; Son_8:5 comp. with Son_3:6) to direct attention to Solomon as again the speaker of these words. And it follows with great probability that the person addressed is likewise the same as before, not some new object of the king’s love different from Shulamith, as Hitzig asserts.—Behind thy veil.—So correctly Hitzig, Vaih., Heiligst., etc., with whom Böttch. and Gesen.-Dietr. (“through thy veil,” i.e., appearing through) substantially agree.1—Thy hair like a flock of goats which repose on Mount Gilead.—As Gilead is visible from the Mount of Olives in the far distance, but not from Jerusalem, its mention, like that of Lebanon and Hermon in Son_4:8, and like so many other allusions in the poem to localities in the north of Palestine, is to be explained from the circumstance that when Solomon was speaking to his beloved, he liked to transport himself to the region of her home with its peculiar circle of impressions and ideas. Gilead is, besides, a mountain land specially rich in cattle (comp. Num_32:1; Mic_7:14; Jer_1:19), and modern travellers have found it still strewn, as it were, with flocks and herds. Comp. Arvieux, II., 688; Paulus, Reisen, 7, 108; Rosenm., Morgenl., I., 85, etc.—The point of comparison in the figure is to be found mainly in the glossy blackness and luxuriant abundance of Shulamith’s hair, perhaps also in its silky softness and delicacy, less likely in her elegant and elaborately braided tresses, to which Magnus thinks there was subordinate reference. Old Luis de Leon correctly (in Wilkens, p. 219): “He indicated thus the abundance and the color of her hair; for the goats, which pastured there, were dark and glossy. He says therefore: as the goats scattered on the summit of Gilead give it a fine and pretty appearance, whilst before it looked like a bald and arid rock, so does thy hair adorn and ornament thy head by its rich color and abundance.”
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Son_4:2. Thy teeth like a flock of shorn sheep.—Sheep recently shorn, consequently smooth, and besides just washed in the pool, and hence snow-white, evidently are a peculiarly appropriate figure for dazzling white teeth, provided pastoral figures or those taken from the realm of country life were to be used at all. And this was to a certain extent necessary here; at least it was extremely natural to illustrate the contrast between the blackness of her hair and the whiteness of her teeth by adding a flock of white lambs to the flock of black goats spoken of in Son_4:1. The idea of the pool for the sheep spontaneously offered itself, since washing newly shorn sheep was a universal custom in antiquity; comp. Columella’s advice (Son_7:4) to wash sheep four days after the shearing.—All of which bear twins, and one bereaved is not among them.—An allusion to the completeness of her teeth, the two rows of which, upper and lower, not only have no breaks, but in every instance exhibit a pair of teeth exactly answering to one another, twin teeth, as it were, throughout.2 That sheep in the East are still mostly διδυμοτόκοι, i.e., have two lambs at a time, is testified by recent travellers, e.g., the anonymous author of the publication, “Ægypten wie es jetzt ist,” p. 42 (comp. Magn. in loc.). L. De Leon (in the same place as before) has again finely shown the sensible and striking character of the comparison here selected: “The figure almost paints the whole thing before our eyes. The flock of sheep, which always go crowded together like the scales of fir cones, represent the compactness and smallness of her teeth: their whiteness is expressed by their coming up from the washing; their uniformity by none being sick or barren.”
Son_4:3. Like a crimson thread thy lips, and thy mouth is lovely.—The lips immediately follow the teeth, not simply because they cover them (Hitzig), but also because the bright red of the one forms an elegant contrast with the dazzling whiteness of the other; comp. the combination of the two colors in Son_5:10. Then the mouth, comprehending both teeth and lips, stands here in its quality of an organ of speech, whence also it is called מִדְבָּר from דִּבֶּר, “to speak,” and is supplied with a predicate (נָאוָה, lovely; comp. Son_2:14; Son_1:15), which serves to characterize not so much its pretty shape or color as the agreeable and beneficent effects proceeding from it. The Sept., Vulg., Syr., Hengstenb., etc., take מִדְבָּר as equivalent to speech; A. Schultens and Döpke, to tongue; Hitzig, to palate. But like all that is described before and after, this expression must denote some part of the body, and one too that is externally visible, and which forms a substantial feature of Shulamith’s beauty.—Like a piece of pomegranate thy cheek.—רַקָּה literally “the temple” (Jdg_4:21; Jdg_5:26), here manifestly the upper part of the cheek, whose soft red borders upon the white of the temple. For this figure of the half of a pomegranate (פֶלַח הָרמּוֹן) refers to the pleasing combination of white and red; on one side of the exterior of this fruit “a bright red is mingled with yellow and white,” whilst the other side looks brown (Döpke). It is only to a half, a segment3 (פֶלַח from פלח, “to cut fruit,” 2Ki_4:39) of the pomegranate that the cheek is compared because its soft curve only corresponds in fact to the segment of a sphere. Not, therefore, “like a slice of a pomegranate” (Luth.) [so Durell, Hodg., Thrupp], as though the flat inner surface of a sliced pomegranate were intended (Hengstenb., Hahn., etc.). For the appearance of the reddish seeds of this fruit, lying in a yellowish pulp, would not form a suitable comparison, whether for a cheek or a temple.
Son_4:4. Like the tower of David thy neck, built for an armoury. His aim was not to describe the slender grace and erectness of Shulamith’s neck in and of itself, but likewise with reference to its ornaments consisting of brilliant jewelry and ornamental chains (comp. Son_1:9-11) and consequently in respect to its superb and stately appearance (comp. Son_7:5 [4]). A pecularly suitable comparison was accordingly offered to the king in the tower, hung around with burnished pieces of armor, and probably built of white free-stone, which David may have erected somewhere in the vicinity, perhaps at one corner of his palace on Zion as a bulwark or a watch tower.4 The identity of this tower with the “tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus” mentioned in Son_8:5 (4) is contradicted by the fact that the latter is a figure for an entirely different thing from that now before us (versusEwald, Hitzig, etc.). Still less can the ivory tower spoken of in the very same passage be identical with this. This manifestly appears from the further defining clauses “built for an armory,” etc., to have been a fortification, a stronghold for arms, a tower for warlike purposes, and hence, perhaps, is not distinct from the “house of the mighty” (בֵּית הַגִבּוֹרּים) spoken of in Neh_3:16, which is assigned to the neighborhood of the district of Beth-zur and the sepulchres of David, i.e., on the eastern side of Zion, on the very spot where David’s old palace must have stood (comp. Weissbachin loc.)—The difficult expression תַּלְפִּיּוֹת, which the LXX render as a proper name (θαλφιώθ), the Vulg. by propagnacula, Aq., and the Versio Veneta by ἐπάλξεις, is most correctly taken with Kimchi for a compound of תֵּלcollis (const.תַּל) and פִּיוֹתenses, edges, sword-blades (Pro_5:4; Jdg_3:16; comp. Psa_149:6), or which amounts to the same thing, referred to תלה “to hang” and פִּיּוֹת in the same sense as before (Hengstenb., Del., Weissb., etc.). In both cases it must designate a lofty object of the nature of a fortification, hung around with swords or bristling with swords, consequently, as mention is also made of shields in what follows, an armory which, as it served for the preservation of numerous martial weapons of offence and defence, was likewise hung around with them on the outside, and thus embellished. For the shields hung on it (עָלָיו) according to the next clause of the verse, and not barely in it (as Hitzig supposes, who fancies a “mound of earth,” which “hides in its bosom such murderous weapons” as swords, shields, etc. This explanation is at any rate better suited to the connection and yields a more appropriate figure for Shulamith’s neck decorated with brilliant ornaments than the derivation of תַּלְפִּיּוֹת from a substantive תַּלְפִּי, which, according to the Arab., would mean “host, army” (Ewald: “built for troops;” Böttch., Rödig., compare Heiligst.), or from an alleged adjective תַּלְפִּיexitialis, destructive, hence תַּלְפִּיּוֹתexitialia, viz. arma, murderous weapons, or from לפה = לָבַן to be white, hence “pieces of alabaster” (Hahn), and the like.5—All the shields of heroes.שְלָטִים has a wider meaning than מָגֵן, which specially denotes the “shield of a light armed soldier,” the “target;” see Gesen. Thes., p. 1418. We are scarcely to think of the shields of conquered heroes, of those for instance which David (2Sa_8:7) had taken from the Syrians (versus Weissb.), because the mighty men here mentioned are simply referred to as the garrison of the armory here described. Comp., moreover, Eze_27:11, a passage which is probably based on that before us.
Son_4:5. Thy two breasts like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that are feeding among lilies. On c comp. Son_2:16. The comparison is plainly intended to express “delicate and exquisite beauty” (Hitz.); for since the gazelle itself, when full grown, is an admirable, attractive and favorite emblem of womanly grace and loveliness (Pro_5:19; comp. above on Son_2:7; Son_2:9), a twin pair of its young lying on a bed covered with lilies appears to be still better fitted to illustrate the fragrant delicacy and elegance of a chaste virgin bosom veiled by the folds of a dress redolent of sweet odors (comp. Son_1:13). A more detailed parcelling out of the comparison (as for instance by Hitzig, who thinks that the dress was red, or by Weissb., who supposes a particular reference in the young gazelles to the dark-colored nipples of her breasts as their especial charm, and in the lilies to the snowy whiteness of her bosom) is inadmissible, and leads to what is in violation of good taste or to what is obscene, from both which the poet has kept free here as every where else. Admirably here again Luis de Leon (p. 221, f.): “In addition to the delicacy of the young kids, in addition to their similarity as twins, in addition to their loveliness and gentleness they have in their merry gambols a frolicksomeness and gayety, which irresistibly enchains the eyes of beholders, and attracts them to come near and touch them,” etc.
Son_4:6. Until the day cools and the shadows flee I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. If Solomon were still the speaker in these words, nothing else could possibly be meant by the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, but the breasts of the bride which would be so designated here in facetious and flowery style (Ewald, Heiligst., Weissb., Ren., etc.,) with allusion to the fragrant substances, which were between them or upon them6 (comp. Son_1:13). But the very circumstance, that then the foregoing figure for the bosom would here be followed by one entirely new and of a different description, whilst every other part of the body spoken of in this section is represented by but a single figure (see Son_4:1-4) makes it improbable that the words before us belong to Solomon. To which may be added that עַד שֶׁיָּפוּחַ הַיּוֹם, etc., must belong to Shulamith here as well as in Son_2:17; and that Böttcher’s attempt to assign only these introductory words to the “vinedresser” as he calls her, and the latter part of the verse from אֵלֵךְ לִי onward to the king who interrupts her, seems scarcely less arbitrary than Hitzig’s view that the whole verse is spoken by the shepherd, who suddenly enters and declares his purpose to effect the speedy rescue of Shulamith! Umbr., Döpke, Vaih., Delitzsch, etc., properly assign the words to Shulamith, who seeks thus to parry the ardent encomiums of Solomon, and hence expresses the wish to leave the wedding hall resounding with the boisterous festivities of the guests until the approach of evening. The “mountain of myrrh” and the “hill of frankincense,” which she wishes to visit for this end, were probably certain localities about the royal palace, near the hall and visible from it, which either always bore those names or only on the occasion of the present marriage, to which fumigations with various spices belonged as an absolutely indispensable ingredient, comp. Son_3:6. As presumably solitary, shady spots, belonging, it may be, to grounds laid out as gardens (perhaps “beds of balsam.” of the sort mentioned in Son_5:13, raised in the shape of pyramids or towers), these must have been to the simple-minded, guileless child of nature more desirable places to stay in than the noisy festive hall. Comp. her similar expressions of a strong desire for the fresh solitude of nature in opposition to the luxurious life of the court; Son_1:7; Son_1:16, and especially Son_7:12 (11) ff. This understanding of the “mountain of myrrh,” etc., is evidently far less forced than explaining it of Lebanon, or generally of the region of Shulamith’s home, for which she here expresses her desire (Umbreit, Vaih.), or of “Sion as the seat of the court” (Hitzig), or of Zion as a figure of the church (Hengstenb.), or of Moriah as the Temple-mountain which is here designated הַר הַמּוֹר (Ibn Ezra, Jarchi). Comp. on Son_5:13 and Son_6:2.
4. Continuation: Son_4:7-11.
Son_4:7. Thou art all fair, my dear, and there is not a blemish in thee. Correctly Delitzsch: “This childlike disposition expressed Son_4:6, makes her but the more lovely in the eyes of the king; he breaks out in the words, ‘thou art all fair, my dear,’ etc., undoubtedly meaning that the beauty of her soul corresponds with her outward beauty—not with reference, therefore; to the charms, of her bodily figure from her breast downward, which are more fully described subsequently Son_7:2 ff.” (Weissb.)—On the form of expression, particularly in b, comp. 2Sa_14:25; Eph_5:27.
Son_4:8. With me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon thou shalt come. Several of the advocates of the shepherd-hypothesis assume at these words a change of person and with it likewise a change of scene, either making the shepherd himself enter and speak all that follows to Son_4:16 (so Böttcher, Ren.), or at least to Son_4:8 (so Hitzig), or regarding all from this verse to Son_5:8 as a monologue of Shulamith, who herein relates the words previously spoken to her by her country lover (so Ewald, who accordingly imagines that the words: “Lo, here comes my lover, and says to me,” or the like, have been dropped out before this verse). But an unprejudiced interpretation renders such artifices needless. Led by the wish of his beloved, expressed in Son_4:6, to exchange her place amongst the jubilant guests for the quiet solitude of nature, Solomon recalls her descent from a simple shepherd’s family in the mountain region of Northern Palestine, and hence he exultingly and in exaggerated expressions announces to her how instead of living in sterile mountain districts, and on barren rocky heights rendered insecure by wild beasts, she should henceforth make her home with him in the royal palace, and in the midst of its rich joys and blissful beauties, herself its loveliest flower, the most charming and spicy of its gardens (see especially Son_4:12-15). The enthusiastic lover does not consider that in this he says nothing that is really agreeable to her, but actually contravenes her longing to escape into the open country from the close and sultry atmosphere of court life, any more than he concerns himself about the exaggerated character of his comparisons, e.g. of the mountains around Shunem with Lebanon, or of the “little foxes” in Shulamith’s vineyards (Son_2:15) with lions and panthers. Poetical exaggerations of this sort are besides quite accordant with his taste (comp. Son_4:4 and especially Son_7:5), and appear much less strange in him than the bold comparison of Zion or of Solomon’s palace with the heights of Lebanon and Hermon (according to Hitzig, Böttch., Renan, etc.,) would sound in the mouth of a simple shepherd.—Besides תָּבוֹאִי “thou shalt come” shows that the speaker had a definite term in mind, to which Shulamith was to come from “Lebanon” as her previous residence (comp. Hitzigin loc.), and that consequently the idea of going up and down from one peak of Lebanon to another (Delitzsch) is not found in the passage.7—Shalt journey from the top of Amana. The “summit” or the “top” of Amana is without doubt the mountain by the river Amana mentioned 2Ki_5:12 K’ri, that is to say that peak of the Lebanon or more accurately the Antilibanus-range, in which this river Amana, the Chrysorrhoas of the Greeks or the Barada of, the Arabs takes its rise. This peak, like the following Shenir and Hermon, stands of course by poetic license for the entire range. For the poet cannot have intended a contrast between the Lebanon in a and these names of mountains that follow, but “he only varies the names because one meant the same to him as another” (so correctly Hitzig, versusDelitzsch, Hengstenb., etc.).—From the top of Shenir and Hermon. According to Deu_3:9 Shenir was the Amoritish name for Hermon itself, which thereby appears to be designated as the “snow mountain” (according to Jarchi on that passage and the Targum on this). Still it is shown as well by the passage before us as by Eze_27:5, 1Ch_5:23, that a distinction was commonly made between Shenir which lay further to the north and Hermon (now Jebel esh-Sheikh) the more southern of the principal peaks in the entire Hermon or Antilibanus range (comp. Robinson, Palest. II. p. 440 (edit. 1838), Berth, on 1Ch_5:23). As now Amana, where the Chrysorrhoas has its source, must be the peak lying farthest to the east or north-east, the enumeration of the three peaks or ridges belonging to Antilibanus evidently proceeds from the north-east to the south-west, or from the region of Baalbec to that of Hasbeya and Paneas (comp. Hitzigin loc.).—From dens of lions, from mountains of panthers. These expressions as belonging to the description and only alluding in a general way to the wild and inhospitable character of the region about Shulamith’s home, are not to be pressed for the sake of obtaining any more special sense, particularly not so as with Köster, Böttcher, Hitzig, etc. to explain the lions of “the king of Israel and his magnates who have dragged the graceful roe Shulamith into his den!” Lions moreover must have had their haunts in the forests of Lebanon, as well as in the reeds on the banks of the Jordan (Zec_11:3; Jer_12:5) and on Bashan (Deu_33:22). And panthers (this is the meaning of נְמֵרִים, not leopards, which as is known, are only found in Africa) are still found in the region of Lebanon according to modern travellers, (Burckhardt, Reisen in Syrien, pp. 99, 66).
Son_4:9. Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. This double designation of his beloved as sister and as bride is neither meant to indicate a peculiarly intimate nor preeminently chaste and pure relation of love. The thing here intended by it is the designation of a certain relationship. As Solomon’s lawful wife Shulamith now, after the marriage has taken place, stands next to him as a sister to her brother.8 She is not barely one of a number of wives (Son_6:8) but a sisterly sharer of his royal rank and name. She is queen, as he is king, yes, a “prince’s daughter,” Son_7:2, as he is a prince’s son (correctly Hitzig and Weissb.).—לִבַּבְתִּנִי not “thou robbest me of courage” (Umbr., Magn.), non “thou hast given me courage” (Symm., Syr., Ewald, Döpke, Böttcher, Meier, Weissb., etc.), but “thou hast unhearted me” (Delitzsch) i.e. “robbed me of my heart, so that it is no more mine but thine,” hast “enchanted me and made me wholly thine own.”9—With one of thy glances; literally “with one from thy eyes,” i.e. with a single one of the glances that proceed from them (Hengstenb., Hitzig, etc.); for the masc. בְאֶחָד of the K’thibh, which is certainly to be retained, cannot refer to one of the two eyes (עַיִן is never masc.), but only to one thing which comes forth from the eyes, an effect proceeding from them.10—With one chain of thy necklace. The representation is ideal and hyperbolical as in the preceding verse. It proceeds in rapturous exaggerations as well here where it paints in detail, as before where it dealt in pompous and grandiloquent expressions. But to be sure, in the matter of love, it always remains true: small causes often produce great effects!—עֲנָק not “ringlet, lock of the front hair hanging down on the neck” (Hitzig), but neckchain, or ornament (comp. the plur.: Pro_1:9; Jdg_8:16). צַוְּרוֹנִים, since it is plural, can neither mean “neck” (Sept., Vulg., Hitzig, etc.) nor be a diminutive of endearment, “tiny neck” (Gesenius, Ewald, Heiligst., etc.). It must rather denote something suspended about the neck, a necklace or jewelry for the neck,11 and עֲנָק a single piece or constituent of it. What had enchanted the king was of course not the elegance or ingenious workmanship of this ornament itself, but that Shulamith’s neck looked so charmingly in it. Comp. above on Son_1:10.
Son_4:10. How fair is thy love, my sister, my bride.דּוֹדִים here again, not “breasts” (Sept., Vulg., Luther), but “caresses, manifestations of love,” as Son_1:2. Comp. generally Son_1:2-3. Solomon here gives back to his beloved with larger measure, what she had there declared of him when absent.
Son_4:11. Liquid honey thy lips distil, my bride; honey and milk are under thy tongue. As in the preceding verse, which like the present consists of three clauses, the first two members refer to one and the same subject, so these two clauses aim to depict but one attribute or one characteristic of Shulamith, viz., her lovely discourse, how sweetly she talked. For it is to this that the figures of lips and tongue point, comp. on the one hand Pro_5:3; Pro_6:24; Pro_7:5; Pro_16:24; and on the other Psa_55:22; Psa_66:17; Psa_10:7; Pindar, Nem. iii. 134; Theocrit. Id. viii. 82 ff.; xx. 26 ff. The fragrant spittle of the kissing mouth can scarcely be intended (vs. Döpke, Magn., Weissb.), in spite of Arabic and classic parallels, that might be adduced (the saliva oris osculantisHorat. Od. I. 13, 16; Catull. 99, 2, etc.). For the parallels Son_2:14, Son_5:13; Son_5:16, likewise refer to the loveliness of discourse, not to the sweetness of kisses.—And the fragrance of thy garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. As is shown by the parallel, Hos_14:7, the Lebanon of this passage is not to be converted into לְבוֹנָה “frankincense” as Döpke imagines, on account of the “sicut odor thuris” of the Vulg. (which probably arose from misunderstanding the ὡς ὀσμὴ Λιβανοῦ of the Sept.). Modern travellers testify (Schulz, Leit. d. Allerh., Th. V. p. 459; Zeller, Bibl. Wörterbuch für d. Christl. Volk II. p. 42) that the cedar groves of Lebanon diffuse a strong balsamic odor. Isaac also commends the scent of his son Esau’s garments (Gen_27:27); and so Psa_45:9 praises the garments of a king celebrating his marriage, which were perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cassia.
5. Continuation. Son_4:12-15.
Son_4:12. A garden locked is my sister, my bride; a spring locked, a fountain sealed. If instead of גַּל in b we were with about 50 Heb. Mss. of Kennicott, the Sept., Vulg., Syr., etc.,12 to read גַּן again, the comparison with the garden, being immediately repeated, would appear to be the main and prominent thought. But it is evidently more suitable that the figure of the spring, which is not carried out any further in what immediately follows, should be twice repeated, in order that it may not be too abrupt. The change of the unusual גַּל (which means spring, fountain, as appears from Jos_15:19; Jdg_1:15; comp. English well, of which the German “Wellen” (waves) is the plural) into גַּן which had been used just before, would also be easier to explain, than a conversion of the latter into the former expression. The garden and the spring being locked up and sealed, naturally indicates that the access is open only to the owner and possessor himself. Comp. Son_4:16, where Shulamith designates her hidden charms first as her own garden, then as Solomon’s; also Pro_5:15-18, where the figure of a spring is likewise applied to the natural relation between a wife and her wedded lord, so that she is represented by a fountain absolutely inaccessible to all men except her husband, and the right of the latter freely to enjoy and to refresh himself with the waters of this spring is clearly presupposed.13 A previous coyness of Shulamith toward her lover (Hitzig, Vaih., etc.) is not at all the thing intended.
Son_4:13-14. A more minute description of the garden, i.e., of the charms of Shulamith, in so far as they may be represented by the choice plants and delicious fruits of a pleasure garden, accessible only to the king; an expansion therefore of Son_4:12 a (as Son_4:12 b is more fully unfolded in Son_4:15). Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates.שֶׁלַח means here as in Exo_31:5, not a plantation (Hengstenb.), but a single plant, literally a shoot, sprout (comp. שִׁלַּחPsa_80:12; Jer_17:8; Eze_17:6-7). By this figurative expression are denoted the charms, the ravishing beauties of the beloved in general, not specially her limbs (Hitzig), or the fragrance of her unguents (Weissb.). A particular explanation of the individual products of the garden is, on the whole, impossible, and it leads to what is at variance with good taste. רִמֹּנִים pomegranates, i.e., the trees, not their fruit (Döpke, Ewald, Weissb.); for the fruit is mentioned afterwards.—On the different opinions respecting the etymology of פַּרְדֵּם, comp. the Introduction, § 3 Rem. 2.—With most excellent fruit; lit., “with fruit of excellencies” (מְגָדִים as Son_7:13). The fruit of the pomegranate trees before mentioned may very well be intended; עִםwith does not necessarily, as is shown by Son_1:11, introduce something entirely new and of a different sort (vs. Weissb.)—Cyprus flowers with nards. As already remarked on Son_1:12; Son_1:14, the cyprus flower or alhenna was the only one of these plants, which was also cultivated in Palestine. The nard grass, grown only in India, is therefore simply added here for the sake of the delightfully fragrant unguent obtained from it, as in the following verse incense, calamus, cinnamon, and probably also saffron are exotic plants known to the Hebrews only from their aromatic products. The description accordingly loses itself here again in rapturous exaggerations and improbabilities in natural history, which however at the same time bear witness to an extensive knowledge of nature (comp. Introduc. § 3, Rem. 1).—Nard and crocus, calamus and cinnamon.כַּרְכּםֹ, Chald.כּוּרְכַּם, Sept.κρόκος (comp. Sanskrit, kunkuma) is the saffron flower, (Crocus sativus) indigenous in India, but introduced also into Egypt and Asia Minor, and consequently perhaps also into Palestine. A water was prepared from it for smelling bottles, with a pungent but agreeable odor, which was a great favorite in antiquity; comp. Winer, R. W. B. Art. “Safran.”—קָנֶה, Sept.κάλαμος, is, according to Jer_6:20; Isa_43:24; Eze_27:19, an article of trade brought from Arabia Felix, sweet cane, calamus. The calamus (juncus odoratus, Plin. XII. 22; XXI. 18) which according to Theophrastus, Pliny and Strabo, grew in Coelesyria and by the lake of Gennesaret, was of an inferior and less valuable sort.—קִנָּמוֹן a Semitic name, as it would appear (lit. “the reed,” or the “rolled together,” from קנה=קנם), in case it is not of Indian origin, and connected with the Malay kainamanis (so Rödiger, Additamenta ad Thesaur., p. 111) signifies cinnamon, which, according to Herodot. III. 111 came through Arabia from the remotest south, that is, probably from Ceylon.—With every variety of incense woods,i.e., with every species of wood, which yields a fragrant gum of the nature of frankincense, or when pulverized is used as “aromatic dust,” or as a powder to be sprinkled for fumigation. In opposition to the reading עֲצֵי לְבָנוֹן (Sept., Velth., Döpke), see Hitzigin loc.—Myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. For myrrh comp. on Son_1:13; and for aloes (אֲהָלוֹת or אֲהָלִים, as Pro_7:17.; Num_24:6; Gr. ἀγάλλοχον, Sanskr. aguru, aghil) see Winer, R. W. B.—Under “all the chief (lit., all heads of) aromatic plants,” balsams or spices (בְשָׂמִים a general expression, as in Exo_30:23; Est_2:12), in addition to the substances already named, cassia is especially to be regarded as included. For according to Exo_30:23 ff., this particular aromatic product was mingled with myrrh, calamus and cinnamon, in the holy anointing oil, and in Psa_45:9 (8) it appears with myrrh and aloes among the precious spices, with which the garments of the royal bridegroom were perfumed.
Son_4:15. Further expansion of Son_4:12 b.—A garden spring (art thou), a well of living water. Comp. Gen_26:19; Jer_2:13. By the “garden spring” (lit. spring of gardens) Hitzig understands the fountain of Siloah in particular—an assumption which is the more gratuitous, as the allusion to שִׁלֹחַ which he finds in שְׁלָחִים Son_4:13, exists merely in the fancy of the overacute modern critic, in spite of Neh_3:15; Isa_8:6; Ecc_2:6, etc.—And streams from Lebanon,i.e., water as fresh and delightfully refreshing as the gushing streams fed by the snows of Lebanon, Jer_18:14. On the figure comp. besides Pro_5:15, the Phenician inscription of Kition (No. 2) adduced by Hitzig, in which a husband calls his deceased wife מבחיי, i.e., מַבֻּעַ חַיַּי, “the spring of my life.”
6. The complete union of the lovers, Son_4:16; Son_5:1.—Ibn Ezra, followed by Ewald and Delitzsch, correctly puts the whole of Son_5:16 into the mouth of Shulamith. The contrast of גַּנִּיmy garden in a with לְגַנּוֹhis garden in b does not make in favor of two speakers, but simply brings out the thought that her garden is his, and therefore that she, with all she has and is, belongs to him; a delicately refined suggestion which is lost by dividing the verse between the lover and his beloved, as approved in recent times (Döpke, Magn., Böttch., Hitz., Ren., etc.).
Son_4:16. Awake, north wind, and come, O south. Shulamith in her poetically excited frame summons just these two winds to blow upon her garden, because neither the east wind with its parching effects and its frequent storms (Gen_41:6; Isa_27:8), nor the rainy west wind (1Ki_18:44 f; Luk_12:54) would be suitable in the connection; and yet two opposite winds must be named, as it is not a blowing off or blowing away that is intended, but causing the odors to flow forth and wafting them in all directions.14That its spices may flow,i.e., that every thing in me, which pleases my lover, all my charms may show themselves to him in their full power and loveliness.—Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat his excellent fruits. The language here becomes plainer, and passes over into a solicitation to her lover to enjoy to the full her charms which he had been praising (for אָכַל “to eat” in this comp. Pro_30:20.) Yet she expresses this wish not by a direct address to him, but by speaking of him in the third person—a token of her chaste, modest and bashful mind.—Son_5:1. I come to my garden, my sister, my bride. That Solomon is here the speaker, whilst full of rapture he sets himself to comply with his beloved’s invitation and to devote himself entirely to her loving embrace incontestably appears from the correspondence of בָּאתִי with יָבֹא in b of the preceding verse, and of אָכַלְתִּי here with וְיֹאכַל there. These verbs, as well as אָרִיתִי (=לָקַטְתִּי “I pluck,” Exo_16:16) and שָׁתִיתִי are not to be taken as preterites: “I have come,” etc., (Del., as the Sept., Vulg., Luther, etc.,) because the acme of love’s enjoyment, to which both are tending, was by no means reached and exhausted by a single conjugal embrace, but strictly as present, as serving to state that which is in the very act of being performed.15 Comp. דִּמִּיתִיךָ; Son_1:9, and numerous examples in Ewald, Lehrb., § 135 c, [Green’sHeb. Gram., § 262, 2.]—I pluck my myrrh.… I eat my honey.… I drink my wine. A threefold declaration in different forms of his immediate readiness to enjoy the charms of his beloved, with a partial return to the figures in Son_4:10-11; Son_4:13.16—Eat friends, drink and drink to repletion, O beloved. Every other understanding of these closing verses seems inappropriate and forced but that already suggested, according to which they are an encouraging address of the bridegroom to the wedding guests, who remain behind at the table. Thus, e.g., that of Ewald, that Shulamith describes in these words the way in which her distant lover, if she were with him and were celebrating her marriage with him, would remember his friends; the strange and burlesque idea of Böttcher referred to above, p. 72; that, too, of Eichhorn, Magnus, Hitzig: that the words are an exhortation of the poet to the two lovers to enjoy their love and intoxicate themselves therewith; and the like views of others, according to which Solomon either encourages his beloved (Umbr., Hengstenb., Hahn) or she him (Weissb.) to the enjoyment of love. These latter views are based upon an untenable translation of דּוֹדִים by “love” as though it were the object of וְשִׁכְרוּ (“intoxicate yourselves with love”) for דּוֹדִים with the scriptio plena is plur. of דּוֹד “beloved” (comp. on Son_1:2), and consequently Pro_7:18 (where it is דֹּדִים “caresses” with the scriptio defectiva) cannot decide for the present case. The Sept., Vulg., Luther, Döpke, Vaih., Del., are substantially correct, the last of whom adds the just remark in explanation: “For each (of the guests) was to have his share in tasting the joy of this day.”
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. That the action of the Canticles reaches its centre and acme in this act, and especially at the close of it, cannot be doubted upon an unprejudiced view of the whole. “The newly wedded bride is now in the arms of her husband and king. Their ardent mutual love is the joyous spectacle presented to a festive assembly, which is attached to the king by friendship and love. Every where the feeling suited to a wedding, enjoyment, and this enjoyment shared by loving sympathy. Arrived at the summit of love’s mystery and moving there with holy purity the song here dies away amid the revelry of the guests.” (Del., p. 115.)
2. The recognition of the central and superior significance of this section is of necessity precluded upon the allegorical interpretation, because it fails to perceive the organic progress of the action in general, and supposes the union of the two lovers to have become complete long before this, (comp. above, p. 56) so as neither to require nor admit of increase. This unio mystica, this perfect union of Christ with His church or with the individual soul it consequently finds not at the conclusion merely, but already indicated at the very beginning of the present act in the “bed of Solomon,” Son_3:7, by which it is true many allegorists understand every different sort of thing, (e.g., Ibn Ezra, the land of Israel; the Targ. and in recent times again Jo. Lange, the temple; Sanctius, prayer; Theodoret, the Holy Scriptures; Aponius, the cross of Christ; and Osiander, the free exercise of religion even!) But the majority find represented in it the communion of believers with Christ at the acme of its perfection, whether their particular explanation points to Christ Himself (Ambrose), or they find symbolized in it the heart of the Christian believer in conformity with Eph_3:17 (Coccei., etc.,) or the free access of believers to the throne of grace in this world and the next (Joh. Marck.), or “the church militant on earth, in which many children are born to the Lord” (Starke after many of the older writers, as Gregory the Great, Cassiodor., Beda, Calov., Heunisch, etc.), or “the intimate relation between the heavenly Solomon and the church” (Hengst.), or the “kingdom administered by Solomon, so far as its power is directed ad extra” (Hahn). In the case of the sedan or magnificent couch (אפריון Son_3:9) this divergence of interpretations is repeated with a prevailing disposition to refer it to the unio mystica. For besides the holy of holies in the temple (Targ.), or the word of God (Mercer.), or the church (Zeltn.), or the human nature of Christ (Ambros., Athanas., Greg., Beda, Anselm, Jo. Lange), it is particularly the work of redemption with the gracious results proceeding from it (Sanctius; similarly Cocceius, Groenewegen, Starke, etc.,) or as expressed by Hengstenberg: “the glory of those measures by which the heavenly Solomon brings the Gentile nations into His kingdom,” that is supposed to be intended by this figure of the sedan.17 It is the same with Son_3:11, where the “day of Solomon’s marriage” according to Starke signifies three things: 1. The day of salvation, when a sinner yields to converting grace, and is united to Christ by faith; 2. The day of the resurrection of the just, when Christ will make them partakers of the blessedness of the world to come. 3. The time when the Jewish people, who have long rejected Him shall crown Him in faith and publicly acknowledge Him as their bridegroom—an explanation with which most of the older and the later writers (even Hengstenb., Hahn, etc.,) substantially agree, especially in so far that nearly all of them understand by the mother of Solomon the church of the Old Testament or the people of Israel, and by the crown with which she adorns her son the entire body of converted souls, which are an ornament and an honor to the Messiah,18 comp. Php_4:1; 1Th_2:19, etc.
This method of putting every possible interpretation upon every particular thing, and thus attaining an extravagant exuberance of multifarious significations, is also followed, of course, by the allegorists in the enthusiastic description of the beauty of the bride in Son_4:1 ff. The hair of Shulamith compared with the flock of goats is made to signify either the entire body of believers or the weak and despised members of the church, or on the contrary, those who strive after a higher measure of perfection, the prelates of the church who have a keen eye like the goats, seek their food on the summits, eat what is green and chew the cud, and have parted hoofs and horns, wherewith to fight the heretics! The teeth of the beloved are prelates who feed upon the Scriptures, or teachers who attack the heretics; the lips either the preachers of God’s word or confessions of faith of the church; the neck the Holy Scriptures or the steadfastness and assured hope of believers; the breasts compared with twin roes either the law and the gospel, or the Old and New Testament, or the Jews and Gentiles, or the eastern and western church, or baptism and the Lord’s Supper as the two sacraments of the church!19 The locking up of the garden Son_4:12 ff, denotes the strong protection with which God surrounds His church as with a wall of fire; the sealing is the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit on the church to enlighten and preserve it, Eph_4:30. The blowing of the north and south wind, Son_4:16 also signifies the Holy Spirit in the varied operations of His grace, purifying, quickening, comforting, rendering fruitful, etc.; and the “coming of the bridegroom into his garden”
(Son_5:1) according to the chronological expositors denotes the dawn of some new epoch in church history, e.g., according to Cocceius the times immediately succeeding Constantine the Great; according to Heunisch the ante-reformation period from the time of the great Schism (1378); according to Corn. a Lapide the incipient old age of the church, etc., but according to the greater number the particular times when Christ enters with the heavenly blessings of His grace into the hearts of believers (Rev_3:20; Joh_14:23), or the threefold advent of the Redeemer: 1. In the form of a servant to found His church. 2. His invisible coming by His Holy Spirit to every individual of His people. 3. His eschatological coming at the judgment and the consummation. Compare generally the multitude of old interpretations of this sort collected by Starke on this section; also Wilkens, Fray Luis de Leon, p. 207, 215, and Dursch, Symbolik der Christlichen Religion, Vol. II. (Tübing., 1859),) passim.
3. Against such excesses and capricious trifling there is no protection but in that historical exegesis, which on the basis of the meaning of the words impartially ascertained endeavors, it is true, to point out the relations in which this action stands to the mysteries of revelation and redemption, and so to make application of its contents to the matters of the Christian life, but conscientiously refrains from all seeking or chasing after any direct spiritual and practical interpretation of individual passages, much less of individual words. To such an exegesis there appear to be chiefly three particulars of especial consequence in that stage of the action which is represented in this act: the elevation of the bride from a low condition to royal dignity and glory; her wondrous beauty as the ground of this elevation; and her chaste and humble mind which impels her to belong only to her lover and to live for him alone.
a. The simple country maiden from the tribe of Issachar is raised to be queen of all Israel, conducted in Solomon’s stately couch with a brilliant military escort, welcomed by the women of Jerusalem with pride and admiration, brought for her marriage to his splendid palace in Zion by Solomon, the most famous prince of his time. Here full of rapture he declares to her that he loves and admires her more than all beside, that she has completely won and captivated him, so that his heart belongs to her alone, and that she is henceforth to exchange her humble surroundings and her country home for his royal palace and its rich enjoyments and brilliant pleasures (see especially Son_4:8-9). In like manner Christ, who is a greater than Solomon, who is King of all kings, and Lord of all lords, has exalted His church from misery and a low estate to a participation in His divine glory; He has made the despised and forsaken “His sister and bride,” a joint-heir of His eternal glory in heaven, has received her into His kingdom, into His heavenly Father’s house and there prepared a place for her, which she shall never be willing to exchange for her former abode in a remote and foreign land, in the wilderness of a sinful, earthly life. For the infinite superiority of that exaltation which the church of the Lord has experienced above that of Shulamith, and which every penitent and believing soul in it still experiences day by day, is shown in this that the shepherd girl from northern Palestine might with good reason look wistfully back to her poverty from Solomon’s palace, that her desire to return from the sultry life of the court to the fresh cool mountain air of her home was but too well justified, whilst the soul which has been translated out of the wretchedness of a sinful worldly life into the blessed communion of God’s grace, has no occasion nor right to be dissatisfied with its new home, but on the contrary has gained unmingled joy, delight and imperishable glory instead of its former condition of unhappy bondage and darkness.
b. The cause of Shulamith’s elevation to be queen of her people lay in her wonderful beauty, which throws the king into such an ecstasy that he analyzes it with the utmost detail in order that he may adduce the finest objects of nature, which his realm affords, to set forth her charms; yes, that he represents one single glance of her eyes, one chain from the ornaments of her neck as possessed of the power to chain him to her completely. So also it is the beauty and god-like dignity, originally belonging to human nature, obscured indeed by sin, but not completely and for ever destroyed, which brought the Lord down to our earth and made Him our Redeemer, the royal bridegroom and loving husband of His church. But there is this difference between the earthly Solomon and his celestial antitype, that the latter must restore the partially destroyed and hideously distorted beauty of His beloved before He can raise her to sit with Him on His throne; He must in order to effect this restoration endure the direst sufferings; He must redeem the poor captive from the prince of this world by the ransom of His own precious blood; and afterwards, too, He must with much trouble and pains seek to retain her whom He has dearly purchased in the way of righteousness and truth and preserve her from falling back again into the defilement of sin. The heavenly Solomon can never, during the course of this present world, attain to a really pure and undisturbed joy in His bride. He has quite too much to do in cleansing her ever anew with the washing of water by the word in order to present her to Himself holy and without blemish, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph_5:26-27). The heavenly bridegroom of souls can neither sing to His church as a whole, nor to its individual members such a praise of her beauty as was sung by Shulamith’s husband, culminating in the encomium, “Thou art all fair, my dear, and there is not a blemish in thee,” Son_4:7. He has, on the contrary, but too abundant occasion to speak to her in the tone adopted in the 16th chapter of the prophet Ezekiel. He must too often hold up before her not only the wretchedness of her birth and the misery of the first days of her childhood, but also the gross unfaithfulness and scandalous defilement of the flesh and spirit, of which, though His elect and His beloved, she has since made herself guilty. And He must all the more postpone her entrance upon the full enjoyment of His blessed society and His heavenly benefits until the future state, for the reason that she is previously lacking in many respects in another virtue which is most of all commended in Shulamith, her historical type. This is:
c. The chaste and humble mind, which the beloved of the earthly Solomon still preserved even after her elevation to regal dignity and glory, that child-like, pure and obedient heart which she brings to her husband, and in virtue of which she will belong only to him and offer the sweet-scented flowers and delightful fruit of her garden to him for his exclusive enjoyment. On the ground of this most sterling of all the qualities of his beloved, this crown of her virtues, Solomon celebrates on the very day of his marriage, his perfect union with her; the locked garden, the bolted and sealed fountain is opened to him for his comfort and refreshment.—The Church, as the bride of the Lord, remains a mere bride so long as she has to suffer and to fight here below, because she does not remain a locked garden and a sealed fountain, to the extent that this could be affirmed of her Old Testament type; because, on the contrary, she too often admits the seductive and defiling powers of sin and of the world to the sanctuary of her virginity, and allows them to desecrate the temple of her heart. Not until the end of days will her perfect union with the heavenly bridegroom be consummated, when she has suffered and contended to the full, and the great mystery, of which Paul writes, Eph_5:32, has been fulfilled by the final and visible coming of her beloved. Until then it is only individual souls in the midst of her, that band of His faithful and elect, who are truly known to the Lord alone (2Ti_2:19; Rom_8:28 ff.), whom He raises to the blessed height of a most intimate communion with Himself, and by the outpouring of His love in their hearts makes them partakers of the full blessings of His heavenly grace. This is that invisible communion of saints, which, as the true salt of the earth and light of the world, forms the real soul of Christendom, the genuine realization of the idea of the Church; which, as the true Bride of the Lamb, day by day with longing hearts unites in the supplication of the Spirit: “Come, Lord Jesus,” Rev_22:17; which, as the entire body of the wise virgins (Mat_25:10) with loins girded and lamps burning (Luk_12:35) waits and watches until He comes “that is holy and that is true, that openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth and no man openeth” (Rev_3:7); which shall therefore one day in glorious reality and with never-ending joy experience the fulfilment of that desire which bids them sigh and cry here below:
Oh! come, do come, Thou Sun,
And bring us every one
To endless joy and light,
Thy halls of pure delight.
Footnotes:
[1][Percy gives the preposition a privative sense, and translates “now thy veil is removed.” He supposes that the royal pair having alighted from their carriage, the ceremony of unveiling the bride here follows, which gives occasion to the bridegroom’s encomium on those features which the veil in great measure concealed. But Williams observes that the “Eastern poets celebrate the charms of the fair through their veils, and improve this circumstance into an elegant compliment.” Ainsworth and others remark upon the circumstance that seven particulars are here mentioned in the description of the bride, viz.: her “eyes, hair, teeth, lips, temples, neck and breasts,” uniting, as Moody Stuart expresses it, “perfection of number with perfection of beauty.”—Tr.]
[2][Ginsburg adopts the translation of Lowth, Percy and Fry with advantage to the figure: “All of which are paired. That is, each upper tooth has its corresponding lower one; thus they, as it were, appear in pairs, like this flock of white sheep, each of which keeps to its mate, as they come up from the washing pool. And no one of them is deprived of its fellow, i. e., no tooth is deprived of its corresponding one, just as none of the sheep is bereaved of its companion. The teeth surely, which are here compared to the flock, cannot be said to bear twins like the sheep.”]
[3][Castellus, followed by Patrick, Good and others: the opening flower or blossom of the pomegranate. Williams: “If the bridal veil of the Hebrew ladies was like that of the Persians, made of red silk or muslin, it would throw a glow over the whole countenance that will account more fully for this comparison.”]
[4][Good: “The graceful neck of the fair bride is compared to this consummate structure; and the radiance of the jewels that surrounded it to the splendor of the arms and shields with which the tower of David was adorned. The simile is exquisite.”]
[5][“Our first business is here with the controverted word לתלפיות, our translation of which “with projecting parapets,” is in partial accordance with, and derives support from that of Symmachus, εἰς έπἀλξεις (al. έπἀνω έπἀλξεων). The word תלפיות, or rather its singular תלפיה [better תלפית] is regularly derived from the root לפה. That root is, according to Buxtorf, actually found in the Chaldee in the Targum of Jonathan on Lev_6:5; although in the Targum, as printed by Walton, we read not ילפי but יוםף. However, whether the root be used or no, its meaning may be assumed to be identical with that of לפף, which is found in other places in the Targum of Onkelos. The meaning is “to add on,” “to join on.” The substantive derived from it, when applied to a building, would thus naturally denote the projecting parts of the building, which seem as it were to be added on to the rest. We have an analogous term in the Chaldee לופּין, derived from the same root as תלפיות, and used in the Talmud of strongly marked eyebrows. The projecting parapets of a tower are in fact its eyebrows. And that ancient towers were built with such projecting parapets, and moreover that shields were hung by way of display on the exterior of the parapets, is established in the most satisfactory manner by a representation on a bas-relief at Kouyounjik, given by Layard, and also in Smith’s Dict. of the Bible, s. v. Gammadims. Of the current explanations of תלפּיות, the only one which seems to call for notice, is that which derives it from תלה “to hang,” כּיות “edges,” and makes it mean “an armory.” Against this lie the objections, 1st that it unnecessarily treats תלכּיות as a composite word; 2d, that an armory would be more naturally described as a “hang-weapons” than a “hang-edges;” 3d, that the figure before us is not that of an armory, but of a building with shields hung on its exterior; 4th, that any etymological connection between the words תלכּיות and תלוי in the two adjoining clauses is improbable, as it would destroy the charm of the studied homœophony. There are two other passages of Scripture in which we may trace some allusion to this tower, Mic_4:8; Isa_5:2.” Thrupp.]
[6][Noyes thinks that the bride herself, in respect to her general charms, is here compared to a mountain of myrrh, etc., to whom the lover says he will return as the antelope flies to the mountain.]
[7][This interpretation certainly assumes such extraordinary exaggerations as to cast suspicion upon its correctness. Noyes says: “Verses 8 and 9 seem to be introduced very abruptly, and their import in this connection is not very obvious. Döderlein and others suppose them to be an invitation to the bride to take an excursion with him, in order that they might admire together all that was grand and beautiful in scenery. Others suppose them to be an invitation to the maiden to come from a place of danger to a place of complete, security in the arms of her lover.” Good: “By this forcible appeal the royal speaker invites his beloved to his arms as to a place of safety; and encourages her to look towards him for security amidst any dangers, either actual or imaginary, of which she might be apprehensive.” Burrowes: “These mountains thus beautiful but dangerous are put in contrast with the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frank incense. The beloved would have his spouse leave the former and seek his society in the retreats of the latter.” The majority of English commentators adopt a similar view, though with some variety in the figurative or symbolic sense which they put upon the mountains in question.—Tr.]
[8][Patrick: “Sister is only a word of tenderness and endearment used by husbands to their wives; as appears by the book of Tob_7:16; Tob_8:4; Tob_8:7.” Noyes, with less cogency, compares Tibul. 3:1, 26. Thrupp is consequently not warranted in saying: “The union of the two appellations is of itself an almost decisive objection against all literal interpretation of the Song. When it is urged by the literalists that the term sister is merely used as an expression of endearment, it may be at once replied that that is the very last term which in chaste love a bridegroom would ever think of applying to his bride.”]
[9][Wordsworth obtains substantially the same sense by a rendering precisely the opposite: “Lit.: Thou hast be hearted me. It implies the answering of heart to heart; the passing of one heart into another, so as to be united with it and fill it.”]
[10](Williams, who remarks that “the K’ri and many MSS. read אחת fem. to agree with עין,” endeavors to account for the singularity of the expression so understood in the following manner: “Supposing the royal bridegroom to have had a profile or side view of his bride in the present instance, only one eye or one side of her necklace would be observable; yet this charms and overpowers him. Tertullian mentions a custom in the East of women unveiling only one eye in conversation, while they keep the other covered; and Niebuhr mentions a like custom in some parts of Arabia. Trav. in Arab. I. p. 262.”]
[11][Whether this conclusion be correct or not, the argument here urged in its favor is plainly not decisive; for the plural of צַוָּאר, the ordinary word for “neck,” is more frequently used in a singular than a plural sense.—Tr.]
[12][So Thrupp: The received Hebrew text here gives not גן but גל which our E. V. renders “a spring.” But the word never occurs elsewhere in this sense; nor is it indeed, in the singular, applied to aught but a heap of stones.]
[13][Fry imagines that this and the following verses do not “contain comparisons of the bride, but are descriptive of the residence prepared for her reception.” He translates: “A garden is enclosed, my sister espoused,” etc. Maundrell, in his Journey says: “About the distance of one hundred and forty paces from these pools [i. e. of Solomon] is the fountain from which they principally derive their waters. This the friars told us was the sealed fountain, to which the holy spouse is compared, Son_4:12. And they pretend a tradition that King Solomon shut up these springs, and kept the door of them sealed with his signet, to preserve the waters for his own drinking in their natural freshness and purity. Nor was it difficult thus to secure them, they rising under ground, and having no avenue to them but a little hole like the mouth of a narrow well. These waters wind along through two rooms cut out of the solid rock, which are arched over with stone arches, very ancient, perhaps the work of Solomon himself. Below the pool runs down a narrow, rocky valley, inclosed on both sides with high mountains; this, they told us, was the enclosed garden alluded to in the same Song.”]
[14][Burrowes: “The east wind is, in Palestine, generally withering and tempestuous; the west wind brings from the sea clouds of rain, or dark, damp air; the north wind is cooling and refreshing, its power being broken by the mountain chain of Lebanon; the south wind, though hot, has its heat mitigated in the upland regions, and is never stormy. The north wind is called on to “arise,” because it is more powerful and strong; the south wind to “come,” as though it were the soft breathing zephyr. The north wind brought clear weather; the south wind was warm and moist. The bride here calls for the north wind, that thereby all clouds may be swept away and the sky cleared; and for the south wind that its genial influence might ripen the fruits of the garden and draw forth the fragrance of the flowers.”]
[15][There is no reference in the language here employed to any thing low and sensual, but to pure and elevated enjoyment in the society and converse of his charming bride. The passage is thus appropriately paraphrased by Taylor: “I already enjoy the pleasure of your company and conversation; these are as grateful to my mind as delicious food could be to my palate: I could not drink wine and milk with greater satisfaction.” He also gives a like figurative turn to the last clause: “And you, my friends, partake the relish of those pleasures which you hear from the lips of my beloved, and of those elegancies which you behold in her deportment and ad dress.”—Tr.]
[16][But see דּוֹדַי Son_7:13.—Tr.]
[17][Weiss expounds it of the holy of holies in Solomon’s temple; the Geneva version of “The temple which Solomon made;” Thrupp and Wordsworth, of the cross of Christ: The Westminster Annotations, Moody Stuart and B. M. Smith, of the person of Christ; Adelaide Newton, of the church; Ainsworth, of Christ and His church; Scott, the everlasting covenant which Christ has meditated in our behalf; Patrick, the preaching of the gospel by which the church is carried triumphantly through the world; Williams, the gospel in its onward progress; Fry and Burrowes, that conveyance, or those methods of divine grace by which the believer is carried onward toward heaven; Gill and Henry, hesitate between the human nature of Christ, the church, the gospel, and the plan of salvation. Burrowes says: “It seems no part of the mind of the Spirit that we should take this description to pieces and try to allegorize the several parts.” Thrupp also conveniently declines to carry the allegory through in all its details; “It is not necessary to suppose that any significance is intended in the assignment of separate materials to particular parts of the vehicle.” Scott, however, is ready with distinct meanings for the “pillars of silver,” the “bottom of gold,” and the “covering of purple.” And Thrupp himself insists that every separate feature of the bride in Son_4:1-7 “must have its own distinct allegorical import. The comparisons would be as extravagant on the allegorical as on the literal interpretation, if the former were not to be carried out into details; and in fact that interpretation is virtually literal which refuses to see any allegory except in the general words ‘Thou art fair.’ ”]
[18]Besides this prevalent form of the spiritual interpretation of Son_3:11 there are various others of a more trifling character, especially among the older exegetes of whom, e.g., Beda and Anselm expound the wedding day of Christ’s conception and birth; Honorius v. Autun and Bernard of the death and resurrection of the Lord (and then the “crown” naturally becomes either the crown of thorns, or the crown of glory belonging to His resurrection and exaltation), whilst chronological expositors as Reinhard, Heunisch, etc., connect the wedding day with the epoch of Constantine the Great, or the conversion of the heathen in a body by the church, and Catholics like Cornelius a Lapide and Calmet explain the “mother” of Solomon of the Virgin Mary.”
[19][The two breasts are further explained in the notes of the Doway version to mean the love of God and the love of our neighbor; in the Geneva, knowledge and zeal; by Moody Stuart and M. B. Smith, faith and love; Patrick, the preachers respectively among Jewish Christians and among the Gentiles; Ainsworth, the loving affection, wholesome doctrines, sweet consolations and gracious beneficence of the church; Scott, the believer’s simplicity of affection for Christ and the delight which Christ reciprocally takes in him; Thrupp, Weiss and Wordsworth, the fountains of nourishment whence is drawn the milk of pure and sound doctrine; while Gill allows a choice between ministers of the gospel, the two Testaments, the two Sacraments and the two great commandments of the law. Burrowes, whom none can suspect of an indisposition to allegorize, has the good taste to revolt at such mangling of inspired emblems. He says, p. 359, “In the comparison of the foregoing verses the thing to be illustrated is the general beauty of the pious soul in the eyes of Jesus. Losing sight of this most commentators have marred the passage by separating these emblems from one another, and appropriating them to other uses than the one intended by the Holy Spirit. What would be thought of a person who under the plea of heightening the effect of a picture by a great artist, should cut out the several figures, the trees, the waters, the tinted clouds, and exhibit them apart in every imaginable variety of light and position? This would show something more than want of judgment. No argument would be necessary to make us feel that such was never the mind of the artist. The common method of expounding this and the other kindred passages in the Song, seems no less unreasonable.”]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–16 1. The language of the Beloved. Thou hast doves’…
1. The language of the Beloved. Thou hast doves’ eyes, etc. — Hebrew, Thine eyes are doves within thy veil. That appear, etc. — Hebrew, That leap playfully down Mount Gilead. The word, etymologically meaning to descend, is used only of goats that spring and caper playfully in their descent. It is a happy figure to express the dancing of the ringlets of a lady’s head.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 1. my love] my friend.
1. my love] my friend.
thou hast doves’ eyes] thine eyes are (as) doves. Cp. Son_1:15.
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within thy locks] from behind thy veil. The translation locks is that of the Jewish commentators, Kimchi and Rashi. The burqu‘ or face-veil of a lady is thus described in Lane’s Modern Egyptians, vol. 1. p. 57. It is a long strip of white muslin, concealing the whole of the face except the eyes, and reaching nearly to the feet. It is suspended at the top by a narrow band, which passes up the forehead, and which is sewed, as are also the two upper corners of the veil, to a band which is tied round the head. Lane remarks that though worn for the purpose of disguising whatever is attractive in the wearer, it fails in accomplishing its main purpose, displaying the eyes, which are almost always beautiful, making them to appear still more so by concealing the other features which are seldom of equal beauty. But as it was not the custom that Hebrew women should be secluded, as is now the custom in Syria, the veil must have been used as part of full dress. This would account for its being worn in the house as it appears to be here.
thy hair is as a flock of goats] i.e. each braid in its glossy blackness is like a separate goat of the herd. The usual colour of goats was black.
that appear from mount Gilead] Literally, that recline from mount Gilead. The picture the words suggest is that of a herd of goats reclining on the slopes of mount Gilead, and raising their heads when disturbed. This gives a picture of rows of goats reclining on an undulating slope, and this latter is the point of comparison. For, if the Heb. gâleshû is connected with the Arabic galasa, as seems likely, it means ‘to sit up after lying down.’ It may be doubted however whether so much can be legitimately put by pregnant construction into the from. Budde connects the word with the movement of the herds, and refers to the late Heb. gâlash, which means ‘to boil up,’ and is used of water. Levy also, sub voce, translates this passage, “which go by in waves”; F. Delitzsch’s “swarm forth from,” quoted in the Variorum Bible, is practically the same. Budde says mount Gilead is the S. portion of the range called now the Belqa, which is mostly pasture land. It lies within view of Judah and Jerusalem.
Chap. Son_4:1-7. The Royal Suitor
King Solomon is here the speaker, and in these verses he presses his suit anew by praise of the Shulammite’s beauty. The whole song is evidently modelled, as several of the succeeding songs are, on the wasf or description of the bride, which is so prominent a thing at marriage festivals in Syria to this day. To have established this is Wetzstein’s great merit, for until his Essay on the Threshing-Board appeared these descriptions were to a large extent inexplicable. But the discovery that the wasf is an ancient form of song connected by prescription with love and marriage explains its appearance here. In a series of love-songs disposed so as to give scenes of a connected narrative, it was natural and almost inevitable that the wasf should be imitated. It has been noticed by many that the spontaneity and originality of the other poems disappear in these descriptions. This is due to their being written according to a stereotyped form. That the wasf was imitated when no regular marriage wasf was intended, but only a love-song, is proved by the fact that in one of the Mu‘allaqât, the seven poems said to have been hung in the Caaba at Mekka in pre-Islamic times, that viz. of Amru ibn Kulthum, in Son_4:13-16 inclusive, there is a description of a woman much in the tone of this.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16 (1) Locks.—Heb., tsammah, only besides in Son_6:7 and Isa_47:2.…
IV.
(1) Locks.—Heb., tsammah, only besides in Son_6:7 and Isa_47:2. The derivation, and the existence of cognate Arabic words, leave no doubt that it means veil. So, in Isa_47:2, the LXX. understood it, though here they have given the strange and meaningless translation, “out of thy silence,” which the Vulg. has still further mystified into “from that which lies hid within,” a rendering which has been a fruitful source of moral allusion to the more hidden beauties of the soul. If the veil was worn in ancient times in Palestine, as by Eastern ladies now, covering the lower part of the face, but allowing the eyes to be seen, the description is very appropriate.
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That appear.—Marg., that eat of; Heb., galash: only here and in the corresponding passage, Son_6:5. The word has had a variety of most contradictory interpretations. The Authorised Version follows the LXX., and has the support of Ewald’s great authority. The marginal eat of rests only on the existence of cognates in Syriac and Arabic = obtained, collected (see Lee’s Heb. Dict.), which would rather point to such a rendering as, “which they obtain from mount Gilead.” The Vulg., quœ ascenderunt, is followed by some commentators, though the bulk give the exactly opposite: “come down,” or “run down,” or “hang down from.” In such a difficulty only the context can decide, and any translation suggesting the dark hair flowing in masses round the shoulders is allowable. At the same time, from a tendency of the author to accumulate, and sometimes to confuse, his figures (Son_4:12; Son_4:15, Son_5:12-13), probably here it is the long, soft, delicate, generally black hair of the Oriental goat which is compared to that of the lady, as well as the general appearance presented by the whole flock suspended on the mountain side.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art…
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thine eyes are as doves behind thy veil; thine hair is as a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Mount Gilead. We commence, at this verse, the loving converse of the bridegroom with the bride, which we must suppose is heard as they travel together in the bridal procession. The words of adoring affection are chiefly spoken by the bridegroom, as is natural in the circumstances, and the reference to the journey, and its consummation in ver. 8, make it certain that the intention is to carry us in thought to the palanquin and the breathings of first love in bridal joy. The poetry is exquisite and truly Eastern, while yet absolutely chaste and pure. The praise of the eyes is common in all erotic poetry. Her eyes gleam, in colour, motion, and lustre, like a pair of doves from behind the veil; showing that the bride is thought of as travelling. The bride was always deeply veiled, (Gen_24:65) as the Roman bride wore the velum flamineum. The LXX have mistaken the meaning, rendering, ektosewv . The veil might typify silence or reserve, but the word is tsammah, which is from a root "to veil," and is rightly rendered by Symmachus kalumma . The hair was long and dark, and lay down the shoulders uncovered and free, which added much to the graceful attraction of the bride. In later times it was customary for the hair to be adorned with a wreath of myrtle or roses, or a golden ornament representing Jerusalem. The goats in Syria and the neighbouring countries are mostly black or dark brown, while the sheep are white. Delitzsch says, "A flock of goats encamped upon a mountain (rising up, to one looking from a distance, as in a steep slope and almost perpendicularly), and as if hanging down lengthwise on its sides, presents a lovely view adorning the landscape." It would be especially lovely amid the romantic scenery of Gilead. The, verb rendered "lie along" is otherwise taken by the LXX, apekalufhsan , and by the Vulgate ascenderunt. The rabbis differ from one another in their renderings. One says, "which, look, down;" another, "make bare," "quit," or "descend;" another, "are seen." The modern translators vary. Luther says, "shorn;" Houbigant, "hang down;" Kleuken and Ewald, "shows itself;" Gesenius and others, "lie down;" Ginsburg, "rolling down," "running down." Our Revised Version gives, lie along, which is a very probable meaning. The reference is to the luxuriance and rich colour of the hair. Gilead would be a recollection of the bride"s native place.
Vers. 1-6. The bridegroom with the bride.
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I HIS PRAISE OF THE BRIDE.
1. The earthly bridegroom. The bridegroom rejoices over the bride. She is wholly his. He enumerates her beauties; they are very precious to him; his great love leads him to dwell on every point. The love of the espousals, (Jer_2:2) the young love of the newly wedded, is a beautiful thing, very tender and touching; it leaves a fragrant memory behind a memory treasured still after the lapse of many years, when the love of wedlock has become, not less true, not less blessed, but calmer and more mellow; and perhaps even more blessed, when no jealousies, no quarrels, have tended to put asunder those whom God hath joined together, but love has continued to increase with increasing years, with less and less of earthly passion, but more and more of holy tenderness and mutual self-denials for the loved one"s sake. Such, alas! was not the love of Solomon. The fair promise, so very bright and beautiful at first, was soon blighted. Corruptio optimi pessima. Nothing in this world is more beautiful and blessed than that holy estate of matrimony which was instituted of God in the time of man"s innocency, which God has consecrated to such an excellent mystery that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church. And, on the other hand, nothing is more degrading and ruinous than that sensual passion which is the caricature of wedded love. The early goodness of Solomon, the bright promise of future happiness and usefulness which gilded his youth, excites an interest in him so persona], that it makes us feel a real grief and disappointment when we read that "King Solomon loved many strange women;" that "when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart;" that "he went after Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians;" that he "did evil in the sight of the Lord." And so it came to pass that that bright beginning ended in utter gloom, in the mournful cry of disappointment. "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity." He could not find satisfaction in his wisdom when he had begun to fall away from God. He found that "in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow". (Ecc_1:18) And so the wisest of men betook himself to pleasure. "I said in my heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth;" "I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house;" "I gat me men singers and women singers;" "Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy". (Ecc_2:1, Ecc_2:7, Ecc_2:8, Ecc_2:10) He found, as they that are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God always find sooner or later, that all this was "vanity and vexation of spirit," nothing better than "striving after wind." "Therefore," he says, "I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit." And this is King Solomon, who surpassed all the kings of the earth for glory and riches; who was wiser than the wisest of his time; who had won in his youth the love of the pure and innocent Shulamite; who (and this is the saddest thought of all) once loved the Lord: "Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father". (1Ki_3:3) While he continued to love the Lord, he was true, we must believe, to the wife of his youth. One who walks in the light of the love of God cannot love the works of darkness, cannot admit into his heart that taint of impurity which so utterly shuts the soul away from the love of God. We wonder whether Solomon repented as his father David did. We know that God warned him, and chastised him for his sins, but we know also that much will be required from those to whom much has been given, and that to fall from such grace as had been bestowed upon Solomon must be a grievous fall indeed; to disobey God who had given him such abundant blessings showed a depth of ingratitude which utterly startles us, till we learn to know in penitence and self-abasement what Solomon impressed upon others, whether he felt it himself or not, "the plague of our own hearts". (1Ki_8:38) The pure love of wedlock is maintained in ever-growing affection when husband and wife both live near to God. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another". (1Jn_1:7) That fellowship which "is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1Jn_1:3) involves of necessity the holiest grace of charity in our mutual relations with our brother Christians; especially those whom God hath joined together must and will, if they are living as the children of God, live together in holy love unto their lives" end. We wonder whether the fair Shulamite lived to experience the change in her royal bridegroom; if she did, the loss of his affection must have been a bitter trial indeed. Perhaps God in his mercy took her to himself before that trial came.
2. The heavenly Bridegroom. It is the will of the Lord Jesus to present the Church unto himself as a glorious Church, holy and without blemish. The Lord shall rejoice in his works. Through the cleansing power of his most precious blood, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which he giveth to his chosen, the Church, his bride shall at the last be "all glorious within;" for he is able "to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy". (Jud_1:24) Then shall there be joy in heaven, when theLord, who endured for the Church"s sake the great agony of the cross, sees the reward of his bitter Passion; when he looks upon the Church, a glorious Church indeed, no longer marred and stained by sin and strife and error, but cleansed and purified "even as he is pure", (1Jn_3:3) made like unto him in the vision of his love and holiness. Then he will rejoice over her as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride. "In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem... The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty: he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing". (Zep_3:16, Zep_3:17) The heavenly Bridegroom will rejoice over his bride; he will see in her the beauty of holiness; he will rejoice in her graces. She is very dear to him, for she is the reward of that long anguish, the agony and bloody sweat, the bitter cross and Passion. And now she is wholly his; she has left all other masters, and given her whole heart to the Lord who bought her, with the fall, pure, holy love which she has learned of him the infinite love.
3. The bride must make herself ready. (Rev_19:7) Without holiness no man can see the Lord. The holiness of the Church consists in the holiness of its members. We must follow after holiness, holiness of heart and life; for without the wedding garment, the white robe of righteousness, none can be admitted to the marriage supper of the Lamb. We must, each one of us, make ourselves ready and prepare to meet our God. The Lord rejoices in the holiness of his people. We must learn, not to seek glory from one another, not to set so much store on human praise, but to seek that glory which cometh from the only God. (Joh_5:44) There were some who would not confess the Lord Jesus because "they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God". (Joh_12:43) We must look onwards to the praise which the heavenly Bridegroom will bestow on the Church, his bride; then shall the true Israelite, who is a "Jew inwardly," "whose praise is not of men, but of God", (Rom_2:29) have praise of God. (1Co_4:5) We must seek that praise with a single heart, walking with God, living to his glory, looking for the blessed hour when we trust to see the heavenly Bridegroom face to face. "He lifts me to the golden doors; The flashes come and go; All Heaven bursts her starry floors, And strews her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. The sabbaths of eternity, One sabbath deep and wide, A light upon the shining sea The Bridegroom with his bride!
II THE ANSWER OF THE BRIDE.
1. She must withdraw for a while. She repeats in her modesty the first clause of her own words in Son_2:17. Then, apparently, she asked her lover to leave her till she had fulfilled the routine duties of the day. He was to return when the day should be cool, and the shadows should lengthen in the evening. Now it is she who will leave her Lord for a time. Perhaps she felt herself almost overburdened by his commendations; the poor country maiden, true and simple as she was, could scarcely understand such praises from the great and magnificent king; they were too much for her; she must retire to collect herself. When the Lord commends the faithful, and glorifies their works of love as done unto himself, they seem oppressed, as it were, for a season by the greatness of his praise. They were only doing their duty; they did it, all of them, more or less imperfectly; they did not regard those poor works of theirs as so exceeding beautiful; they did not think that they had been conferring benefits upon the Lord himself, that they had so greatly pleased him; they were humble, self-distrustful; they seem almost to shrink from the praises of the King. The grace of humility is a very holy thing; it lies at the entrance of the kingdom of heaven; it is the first of the Beatitudes. "Not he that commendeth himself is approved, but he whom the Lord commendeth". (2Co_10:18)
2. Whither the bride retires. "I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense." The words may, taken literally, signify some retired place in the palace garden, as many scholars think; but myrrh and frankincense are words of frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture, and are often used with a more or less mystical meaning. The Wise Men from the East brought gold and frankincense and myrrh as offerings to the infant Saviour; wine mingled with myrrh was given him on the cross; his sacred body was laid in a mixture of myrrh and aloes brought by the faithful Nicodemus. The mountain of myrrh seems to suggest the necessity of purification before the soul can dwell always in the presence of the Lord. The maidens from among whom the Queen of Persia was to be chosen had to go through a time of purification, "six months with oil of myrrh". (Est_2:12) It tells us also of the bitter draught, the cup of sorrows, which they who are to be nearest Christ must take. "Are ye able to drink of the cup that I must drink of?" Those who aspire to the highest places in the kingdom of heaven must learn the deepest lessons of humility, the severest lessons of entire submission of will to the holy will of God. They must get them to the mountain of myrrh, to the cross. Our self-denials are small and unworthy; the cross of Christ sets before us a mountain of self-sacrifice, a height that reaches unto the heavens. We must draw nearer and nearer to the cross in daily self-denial and self-abasement, if we are to realize at last the full, deep joy of uninterrupted communion with the Lord. And if myrrh means self-denial, the dying unto sin, frankincense means worship. The sweet odour of the incense going up from the golden altar is a meet emblem of the prayers of the saints. (see Rev_8:3, Rev_8:4) We must learn the blessed lesson of worship on earth before we can join the choir of happy worshippers around the glory throne. We must get ourselves to the hill of frankincense, to the Lord"s house, where the incense of prayer and thanksgiving ever ascends, where he himself is in the midst, among those who are gathered together in his name. There we may be trained, if we come in the Spirit as Simeon came when he found the Lord Christ, in that holy worship, worship in spirit and in truth, which is the true preparation for the glad adoring worship of triumphant saints in heaven. Till the evening of life comes, till the shadows lengthen into the night, we must get ourselves to the work which the Lord has given us to do the work of self-discipline, the work of worship here below, that we may be ready when he cometh to take our part in the never-ceasing worship of heaven, and there to be ever with the Lord.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY Vers. 1-7. What Christ sees in those who love him.
As a mere story, these verses may be taken as a further attempt on the part of King Solomon to win her to whom he speaks for himself. Therefore he extols her beauty. Her eyes like the beautiful eyes of the Syrian dove; her dark glossy hair like that of the goats that browse on the slopes of Mount Gilead; her teeth white as the newly cleansed wool, as even and regular as is the fleece that has been first shorn, and perfect as is the breed of sheep he tells of; her lips ruddy; her mouth so comely; her cheeks rosy red, like the opened pomegranate; her neck graceful, and adorned with precious jewels; and so on. Even her home, because it is her home, is as a hill bearing trees of myrrh and frankincense, and thither would he resort. And he sums up his description by declaring that she is "all fair that there is no blemish in her. Now, on such flattery, of on Son_1:9-17; Son_2:1-7. But had these verses no other meaning than this literal one, we cannot think they would have found place in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore we take them as setting forth, under their rich Oriental colouring, the blessed truth that, in the sight of their Lord, his people are without blemish, "all fair." It is the same truth as was meant by that at present unloved phrase, "imputed righteousness." And that it is unloved is owing to the fact that its meaning has been grossly perverted, and made to stand for ideas dishonouring to God and disastrous to the spiritual life of men. But in reality the phrase means just that which in these verses is allegorically set forth. In interpreting these verses it is not the right or reverent way, though many have followed it, to affix some definite meaning to every detail of the description given, but to take the description as a whole, as attesting the beauty of the redeemed in the sight of their Lord. Therefore, though some have interpreted the dove"s eyes as the eyes that are ever towards the Lord in holy desire; and the hair as the unshorn locks of the soul"s consecration to Christ; and the teeth, undecayed and perfect, as the faith which feeds on Christ; and the lips as those of one once leprous, but now purified by the precious blood of Christ, and so like a scarlet thread; the blushing temples no longer bold and brazen, but suffused with crimson as the pomegranate, telling of the soul"s true repentance; the neck, tall, stately, graceful, strong, telling of the liberty and courage Christ has given the soul; the breasts of the twin graces of faith and love, which Paul says are the believer"s breastplate; all this (cf. Stuart), though interesting and ingenious, appears to us unnecessary and, in some hands, injurious. We therefore take the description generally, and note
I THE FACT THAT CHRIST DOES REGARD AS BEAUTIFUL THE REDEEMED SOUL. She is spotless in his sight. He says, "The glory thou gavest me I have given them." Christ is made unto us "Righteousness and Sanctification." He shed his blood that his Church might be "a glorious Church, not having spot," etc. (Eph_5:27) He will present us "faultless before the presence of his glory". (Jud_1:24) "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you," said our Lord. (cf. 1Co_6:11) And if he did not so regard his people and count them "precious in his sight", (Isa 43) wherefore should he have done and suffered for them all that he has? Whatever we make sacrifices for we count beautiful. Our love pierces through the outer husk of circumstance and evil habit, and sees the beauty within; and it is for that we will make sacrifice if need be. And so with our most blessed Lord his eye of love pierced through the often hideous husk of men"s vile habits and ways to the soul on which his heart was set, that he might redeem and save it, and make it beautiful, like his own. And when that soul turns to him in trust and penitence, then at once that soul is "all fair" in his sight, and "there is no spot in" it.
II WHY SHOULD WE NOT? Men say, "It is wrong to represent God as seeing otherwise than according to the truth of things. Therefore to say of a soul, "There is no spot in it," when we know that "from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head there is no soundness in it", (Isa 1) this is to introduce unreality and make-believe into the most sacred regions." But look at the mother"s joy in her babe. Whence comes that? Is it not largely the loving onlook she takes into the future of that child? She sees, or at least believes she sees, that child grown up in purity, intelligence, goodness, and all that is lovely and lovable. She is a believer, and you cannot move her, in imputed righteousness; for what is she doing but imputing, all that righteousness to her babe. See the shipbuilder in his yard. There is a ship in its earliest stages of construction. You can see nothing but chips and dirt and confusion. But he sees that ship in her completion in all her strength, the beauty of her lines, and all the perfectness which he intends shall belong to her. And he "imputes" to her all that. And so with our Lord. He sees all that the soul shall be when he has perfected the "good work" which he has already begun for and in it. This is why, even now, it is fitting that he should see and say, "There is no spot in thee.
III AND WHAT IF HE DOES? There is:
1. All consolation for the anxious, mistrusting soul. The soul is, as it well may be, often overwhelmed with the sense of its own vileness and sin. It clings to Christ with the grasp of all but despair. What a help to know that Christ"s estimate of us is not our own! How often we are able to help a man up by letting him see that we believe in him, notwithstanding he has done wrong] Arnold"s word, "Trust a boy, and he will become trustworthy," is most true. The fact we are considering is not only full of consolation, but lull of help to us poor sinful men.
2. Inspiration for the better life. If Christ thinks me so, I will strive to become so. Is this his ideal for me? I will, in his strength, strive to realize it.
3. The enkindling and constant rekindling of our love for Christ. S.C.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON Vers. 1-5. The charm of true beauty.
The bride is now in the palace which is to be her residence of state. The veil is removed from her countenance, and as her royal lover and spouse gazes upon her form and features, he is filled with admiration, and breaks forth in a poetical commendation of her loveliness. The language is the warm language of love, and the figures employed are more Oriental than those which would be used amongst ourselves. But all is natural to an Eastern imagination, which revels in eulogium that to our colder taste would seem extravagant. The beauty of the figure and the face may be taken as emblematical of that higher beauty which attracts and satisfies the spiritual discernment. The description has been taken as applicable to "the bride, the Lamb"s wife," faultless and flawless in the view of him who has purchased his Church unto himself.
I THE SPIRITUAL BEAUTY WHICH CHRIST DISCERNS IN HIS CHURCH IS HIS OWN CREATION. There is no excellence in man apart from God. The highest excellence to be found in human character and history is the effect of the Divine interposition of grace. God in Christ has created anew, and in his own likeness, those whom he has visited with his favour. The beauty of regenerate character and consecrated life is the beauty which the Holy Spirit has imparted. It is Divine grace which bestows upon the human soul the virtues and graces which make that soul admirable and invest it with a spiritual charm. "Nought God in us but his own gifts doth crown.
II THIS SPIRITUAL BEAUTY IS AKIN TO CHRIST"S OWN. The influence is well known which the marriage state exercises in the gradual assimilation to one another in character and habits of those wedded for long years. The resemblance between the Divine Head and his spouse the Church is so striking that none can overlook it. They who accept Christ"s doctrine, place themselves beneath his guardianship, cherish his love, cultivate his society, are hereby transformed into his likeness. Who has not seen in faithful and devoted friends of Jesus traits of their Lord"s spiritual character, lineaments unmistakably his? The sympathy, beneficence, the purity and tenderness, the patience and self-denial, which are "notes" of the true Church, are evidently Christ"s; from the Divine Lord, and from no lower source, have all these virtues been derived.
III HENCE THIS SPIRITUAL BEAUTY YIELDS SATISFACTION AND DELIGHT TO THE SAVIOUR HIMSELF. If it seems at first an extravagance to suppose that the Lord of all can find joy and complacency in beholding his Church on earth, the explanation must be sought in the principles just stated. Humanity was originally created in the image of God and for the glory of God. The purpose of Eternal Wisdom in creating this human race was that his own attributes might be visibly and manifestly embodied and displayed, according to the measure of the creature, in his own highest handiwork on earth. Nor has this purpose been defeated by sin. The image sin has marred, the grace of God in Christ has restored. And it may be that the work of redemption brings out the moral and spiritual beauty in which God himself delights, with a bloom and charm and perfection which would otherwise have been impossible. Christ sees of the travail of his soul, and is satisfied.
APPLICATION. The Church of Christ may well be encouraged and cheered by the assurance that the Divine Spouse appreciates those spiritual excellences which are due to the operation of his own Spirit. "Behold, thou art fair, my love," is the language of the Bridegroom as he looks upon his beloved. And our Saviour is not insensible to those signs of grace, those revelations of spiritual beauty, which he daily discerns in his own. Those who would please Christ may well be animated by the knowledge that he never looks with indifference upon the proofs of sincere affection, upon the evidences of spiritual assimilation to himself. Well may the Christian adopt the language of St. Augustine, "Take from me, Lord, all that injures me and displeases thee, and give me all that is requisite to please thee; give me words, affections, desires, and works which may draw upon me thine eyes, thy delight, and thy love! T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16 Come with Me from Lebanon, My spouse, with Me…
Son_4:8
Come with Me from Lebanon, My spouse, with Me from Lebanon.
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The invitations of Christ
The whole idea is that the Shulamite Virgin who is sought as a bride lives in high, craggy, cavernous regions--amid inhospitable scenes--and close to the mountain haunts of beasts of prey. Such words as Amana, Shenir, Hermon, and Lebanon are used to typify a region of mountain, rock, fastness, forest, and jungle. There the fair Shulamite has her native home, That is one side of the picture. On the other side is the King, who lives in Jerusalem, the royal city, the city of peace, far away from the haunts of leopards; and He goes forth to invite the bride to leave the crag and the den, the forest and the danger, saying, Come to Jerusalem, to the centre of civilization, to the home of beauty, to the Kings palace, to the splendid and inviolable home,--no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast go up thereon,--come, O My dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, whose lips drop as the honeycomb, and the smell of whose garments is as the smell of Lebanon, come! How is all this sustained by collateral Scripture, and made to apply to the Son of God? Christ calls men away from what may be regarded as the nativities of the present scene. There must be no division, no holding on with both hands: the attitude must not be that of one who has the right foot in the caverns and the left foot in the metropolis: there must be a complete detachment from all that is native and original, and a clear coming away with all trust and love and hope to the new abode. Christ is calling us away from our animalism--the first condition of our birth. He will not have it that the body is the man, that the flesh is the immortal part of humanity. So Christ calls the Church, which is His Bride, the Lambs Wife,--He calls her away from stony places, and from low associations, and from connections with lions dens and mountain haunts of leopards,--calls humanity away from flesh, and earth, and time, and sense, and prison, into all the upper spaces, where the blue sky is unclouded, and where the infinite liberty never degenerates into licence. What does Christ call us from? Precisely what the Shulamite was called from--from stony places and desert lands and mountain fastnesses--from desolation desolate. When does Christ ever call men from knowledge to ignorance? from abundance of spiritual realization to poverty and leanness of soul? When does Jesus Christ ever offer men an inhospitable welcome? The great offers of the Gospel are in such terms as these: Eat and drink abundantly, O beloved! He, every one that thirsteth, Come! We are called not only from desolateness, but from danger. If we have not entered into the spirit-life, the faith-life, that higher life which sees the invisible and realizes the eternal, then we are simply walking through perils without number, and as for seductiveness or subtlety or power of involving us in mischief and in suffering, no language can express the reality of the situation. We are called not only from desolateness and from danger, but from incongruity. What a background was the mountain region to the fair and lovely Shulamite! Surely that fair dove was made for Jerusalem, and not for some region of caverns or mountain haunts of leopards. Save her! This sense of incongruity afflicts men who profess to be under the spell of refined and elevating taste. What shocks do men receive who profess to be refined and large in their culture! A musician feels as if he were staggering under a blow of insult when he hears a false note. Is there no law of incongruity in morals, in spiritual relation? What doest thou here, Elijah?--why wanderest thou in these desert places, O thou child of the king, meant to adorn a palace? Why estranged and ragged and humiliated and debased, thou child of fortune? Explain the ghastly incongruity! Christ ever calls men to home, to security, to honour. Herein he is like the man who seeks the Shulamite for his bride: he calls her to the palace, to Jerusalem, to all beauty and comfort and security. Jesus Christ says, I go to prepare a place for you. When Jesus Christ prepares a place, who can describe its largeness, its beauty, its completeness? Where I am, there ye shall be also; and where He is, heaven is. But, there is on the road a cross? We cannot enter into the city unless we understand the cross, and die upon it. The cross is not an intellectual puzzle; it is a cross on which every man must be himself crucified with the Son of God. After the cross the crown--the pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. After the cross, the city in the midst of whose street, and on either side of the river, is the Tree of Life. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Christs invitation to His bride
This world was never designed to be the fixed abode of the children of men, and therefore there was a restraint laid upon our first parents in paradise, as to the forbidden tree, showing that they behoved to look to another world for their happiness. Man was once set fair on the way to the land where glory dwells, but he lost his way, and now poor sinners are found wandering on the mountains of vanity. The first Adam managed ill, and brought us into this condition. But behold, the second Adam came to gather the dispersed of Israel, and to lead them on their way to the better country. Hear His voice in the text, calling His people to leave the weary world and go homeward with Himself.
I. Take notice of some things supposed in this kind call and invitation.
1. It supposeth that Christs bride is yet in the world. Though brought out of Egypt, yet not come to Canaan, but still in the wilderness.
2. Though she be there, and perhaps has been there many years since she was united to Christ, yet He has not forgot her, but kindly remembers, her still, whatever she may think otherwise.
3. The world is not a place for Christs spouse to rest in, she is in great danger there.
4. Yet sometimes the foolish creature lies down even among the lions dens, and being charmed with the deceitful mountains is averse to come away.
5. Our Lord takes notice of and is concerned for the souls danger from the deceitful world. And therefore He cries with earnestness to come away.
II. Explain this coming from the world, or show what is implied in it. There is a twofold coming away from the world,
1. There is a natural coming out of it. By the course of nature, we are all on our way out of it.
2. There is a spiritual coming out of it, namely, in heart and affection. This is what Christ is calling you to this day.
(1) Take your last look, the parting look of the world by faith even as Moses did of the profits and pleasures of Egypt.
(2) Turn your backs, then, upon the things of the world. Be mortified to them.
(3) Give up this day with the men of the world, never more to mix with the natives of the weary land; who labour for nothing but the entertainment of Lebanon, and who have taken up their home among the lions dens.
III. Show the import of coming away with Christ from the world.
1. Our Lord has a better place for your reception, than the world can be in its best dress. This is the new Jerusalem. There His Fathers house stands. And in that house are many mansions. The society of saints, angels, and to be ever with the Lord constitute the felicity of the place.
2. Our Lord can assuredly bring you into this glorious and happy place. But oh! will I obtain admission? Why, come with Me, says Christ, there will be no hindrance if you enter along with Me.
3. That place is His own choice.
4. Christ is in His way thither, out of the world to His Fathers house, the better country. What, is not Christ there already? True, Christ personal is there, but Christ mystical is not there yet.
5. Our Lord is very desirous of your company by the way, yes, and to have you away with Him for altogether.
6. Our Lord displays His glory to you in the Gospel, to win your hearts and get you away with Him.
7. Our Lord offers you, not only better in hope, but better in hand than the world can give you.
8. If you will come away, you shall go as He goes, you shall go together. Go as He goes in point of duty. Esteem all things as He does. Let His choice be your choice. Rejoice in those things in which He rejoices; and be grieved for what grieves His Spirit. Love what He loves, and hate what He hates.
9. He will lead you and support you through the whole of the way. You are now in the fields of the world, and there will be difficult steps in your way to the city; these will not be easily discerned, but come with Him, He will keep you from stumbling on the dark mountains.
10. He will be all to you in all. Leave all the world and come with Me, for all, as the espoused bride goes with her husband. Whatever comfort, pleasure and delight you drew out of the muddy streams, you may now draw in a far superior manner from the fountain. Thus it shall be your duty and privilege too, to live as people of another world. For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. (T. Boston, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 8, 9, 16 Son_4:6 : Until the day dawn, and the shadows…
Notes
Son_4:6 : Until the day dawn, and the shadows flew away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. ‘Until the day dawn’ (עַדשָׁיָּפוּחַ הַיּוֹם, adh shey-yaphuakh hay-yom), שֶׁיּפוּחַ, composed of שֶ, for אַשֶר, that, and יָפוּח from פוּחַ, to blow or breathe; literally, till the day breathe. According to some, before the cool of the day; a cooling breeze usually blowing at that time in the East. So EWALD, GESENIUS, ROSENMÜLLER, and most of the moderns. Reference to the easterly gale which frequently accompanies the approach of the sun to the horizon. PARKHURST, PERCY, A. CLARK, PURSY observed that a wind blows fresh both at the rising and setting of the sun. GILL. According to the earlier interpreters, the reference to the morning gale or dawn of day. A local beauty: in those hot countries the dawn of day is attended with a fine refreshing breeze much more grateful than the return of light itself. VATABLUS. Reference to the morning still preferred by some moderns. The refreshing breeze of dawn in the East, or air of life, which distinguishes morning from the death-like stillness of night. M. STUART, FAUSSET. ‘Breathe:’ a figurative expression for the reviving of the day after its apparent death. GOOD. Till the day breathe forth, i.e., light; may also refer to the blowing of the wind at the break of day. AINSWORTH. PISCATOR has: Till the day respire or refresh himself, i.e., the sun, after the labours of the day: Ancient versions and Fathers connect with the preceding ‘until evening,’ when having fed, they (i.e., the roes) return home. JUNIUS and DURHAM refer it to the day in which the marriage was to be consummated. According to DELITSCH and ZÖCKLER, the words spoken by Shulamite, as well as in chap. Son_2:17. According to the former, the Bride modestly wishes to leave the hall for a more solitary place in the precincts of the palace, till evening shall bring her again into the King’s presence. So BARTH (Bible Manual): the Bride unable to bear herself so highly commended, and desiring to prepare herself for the Bridegroom. Others, probably more correctly, ascribe the words to the Bridegroom. So EWALD: Till the day declines (i.e., soon) would I enjoy thy beauty. GILL views the words as spoken by him in reply to the request of the Bride in chap. Son_2:17. According to the author of the Threefold Mystery, he intimates the coming change—his withdrawal for a season—with, however, a word of hope. Allegorically: Till the evening of the world, when I will take thee to myself. PISCATOR. FROMONDI: I will go during the night of this present life. DURHAM: Till the day when the Bride shall be taken into immediate communion with the Bridegroom. FRY: Till the day of Christ’s second appearing. FAUSSET: Till the everlasting day: typically, God’s taking up his abode in the Temple till the day break of Messiah’s first appearing. MERCER and others: Day of the Gospel Dispensation, when the shadows of the law should pass away. GILL: The day of grace, and then the day of glory to elect souls.
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‘I will get me to the mountains of myrrh,’ &c. According to some, the reference to certain localities. ZÖCKLER: Localities about the royal palace: solitary shady spots, perhaps beds of balsam (Son_4:13). UMBREIT: The region of Shulamite’s home. HITZIG: Zion, as the seat of the Court. WILLIAMS: The Lebanon: the allusion to the fragrant groves of spices to be found in that country. A. CLARKE: Probably the mountains of Bether. COBBIN: The object to obtain perfumes for the Fair One. Others regard the language as figurative and denoting the Bride herself. GROTIUS: The breasts of the Bride, with allusion to the fragrant substances upon them. PERCY: The Bride compared to an entire heap of perfumes. EWALD: Shulamite’s beauty so compared, as inviting from its sweet perfume. Allegorically: The temple on Mount Moriah. TARGUM, RASHI, ABEN EZRA. Mount Moriah, where the oil was made out of pure myrrh: Mount Zion as a figure of the Church. HENGSTENBERG. Where Isaac was offered. Old Commentator. Where frankincense was offered on the altar of incense; the Lord promising to dwell in the Temple now dedicated to Him (2Ch_7:12-15). WEISS, FAUSSET. Reference to the Temple and its prayers and services, where Jesus often brought the devotion of holy prayer. DEL RIO. Heaven. PISCATOR. The heavenly Jerusalem. JUNIUS. As the place of special holiness. SANCTIUS. The abode of martyrs and confessors. HONORIUS. The abode of angels, spoken of in the East as having bodies of perfume. HARMER. The mediatorial kingdom of Christ, where He presents to the Father the incense of His finished atonement. HAWKER, and the author of Three-fold Mystery. Refers to the crucifixion and death of Jesus. GREGORY. Christ went willingly to death: the mountain of myrrh His death, the hill of frankincense His resurrection and ascension. THEODORET. Christ’s mountain full of rich gifts, but only available for us by the bitterness of His death. DEL RIO. Historical reference to Calvary, and the embalming of the Lord’s body with the myrrh and aloes till His resurrection. M. STUART. The Bride or Church of Christ, even now lovely and precious in His eyes as the mountain of myrrh. PATRICK. The Church, where the graces of His people flow, and where their prayers are as incense. DURHAM. Where Christ takes up His abode till His second coming. GILL. The Church assembled under the Gospel ministry, where the name of Jesus, like frankincense, fills the hearts of His people with the savour of His presence. HAWKER (Notes).On the sweetly smelling sacrificial fragrance of the mountain of myrrh (his Bride) he will delight himself from morning till evening. HAHN. Souls whose fleshly lusts are mortified by the myrrh of repentance. FROMONDI. Reference to a life of prayer and contemplation. TIRINUS. As spoken by the Bride. The Church will flee for safety from her persecutors to the place prepared for her in the wilderness (Rev_12:14). COCCEIUS. Will wait for the day, retiring for prayer and meditation. HAWKER. To the mountain of sacrifice and the hill of praise. DAVIDSON. The soul in great distress fleeing to Christ for refuge in prayer and meditation. AINSWORTH.
PART THIRD
The Marriage Feast
CHAPTER Son_4:1-16, TO Son_5:1
SCENE FIRST. Place: Bridal Apartment in Solomon’s Palace. Speakers: The King and Shulamite
THE KING
Expressing his Admiration of and Delight in his Bride
CHAP. Son_4:1-7
Behold, thou art fair, my love;
Behold, thou art fair.
Thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks.
Thy hair is as a flock of goats,
That appear from Mount Gilead.
Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn;
Which come up from the washing;
Whereof every one beareth twins;
And none is barren among them.
Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet;
And thy speech is comely.
Thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate,
Within thy locks (or, ‘behind thy veil’).
Thy neck is like the tower of David,
Builded for an armoury;
Whereon there hang a thousand bucklers,
All shields of mighty men.
Thy two breasts are like two young roes
That are twins,
Which feed among the lilies.
Until the day break,
And the shadows flee away,
I will get me to the mountain of myrrh,
And to the hill of frankincense.
Thou art all fair, my love;
There is no spot in thee.
Shulamite not now merely a betrothed, but a married wife. Hence in this chapter, for the first time, called by Solomon, ‘My spouse.’ Her veil removed in the bridal apartment, Solomon surveys her beauty, and contemplates her person with intense delight. Spiritually, the Church, or individual believer, still regarded as on earth, but in an advanced stage of experience as compared with that of the preceding chapters. Historically, the New Testament Church, or the Church after Pentecost, indicated; the crucifixion and death of Jesus, followed by His resurrection and ascension, being regarded as the nuptials. In reference to individual believers, the present part of the Allegory may be viewed as descriptive of the time when they have made the public and solemn profession of their acceptance of and self-dedication to Jesus, by sitting down at His table, and receiving that seal of the Covenant and pledge of His love.
The text, Solomon’s previous commendation of the Bride now repeated with considerable enlargement and particularity. Formerly, only her dove-like eyes commended and admired. Now all her features, as well as the upper parts of her person—her hair, neck, and breasts. Observe—
1. A growth of grace in believers. The path of the just as the shining light. Believers changed from glory to glory. Beautiful in Christ’s eyes here; much more so hereafter. Heaven the place of just men made perfect.
2. Periods of special advancement in the history of the Church and of individual believers. A great advance in holiness and grace in the Church of the New Testament after the day of Pentecost, as compared with that of the Old Testament. A similar advance to be experienced in the Millenial Church as compared with the Church in its present state. The light of the moon made to be as the light of the sun; and the light of the sun as the light of seven days (Isa_30:26). A great increase of grace often visible in the case of a believer after a solemn and public dedication of himself to the Lord, and a sealing of the Covenant at the Lord’s Table. Believers frequently sensible of a considerable advance in grace, and of an elevation of their spiritual life to a higher level. Such elevations often preceded by painful trials, deep soul-exercises, and renewed conviction of sin. Much higher attainments in grace to be gained than are ordinarily arrived at. Such attainments to be earnestly desired and sought after. Provision made for them. ‘Open thy month wide, and I will fill it.’ ‘Be ye filled with the Spirit’ (Psa_81:10; Eph_5:18).
3. The highest delight of Jesus in the spiritual beauty and perfection of His Church and people. ‘Forget thine own people and thy father’s house; so shall the king greatly desire thy beauty’ (Psa_45:10). ‘The Lord in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing’ (Zep_3:17). Christ’s joy fulfilled in the spiritual prosperity and perfection of His people. The description of the Bride’s beauty in the text a climax, indicative of the joy of the Bridegroom—his affection kindling as he contemplates the object of his love. Commences with: ‘Thou art fair;’ and ends with: ‘Thou art all fair; there is no spot in thee.’
4. The believer’s love, as expressed in the ‘eyes,’ her main attraction in the view of Christ. The Bride’s dove-like eyes the first feature described, and the only one previously mentioned. The eyes the expression of the soul, and especially of the tender emotions. Doves distinguished for their affection, especially to their mates. Hence, ‘doves’ ‘eyes’ particularly expressive of the affection of a loving Bride. The believer’s eyes such; as being meekly and lovingly directed to Christ as His Bridegroom.
5. The beauty and excellence of the believer in Christ’s eyes made up of a variety of particulars. Seven here mentioned, as perhaps indicative of the believer’s perfection. Not necessary exactly to fix the spiritual reference of each, though desirable to find the corresponding grace in the believer’s character. The various particulars that constitute the spiritual beauty and excellence of the believer scattered up and down in the Scriptures. Sometimes brought together in a cluster, as in the text. So in Gal_5:22; 2Pe_1:5; Php_4:8; Col_3:12. These particulars all seen combined in their perfection in the person of Christ Himself. The believer’s duty and interest to see that none of these features in the spiritual character are wanting or defective in him. Symmetry, proportion, and completeness necessary to the perfection of the Christian character.
6. The comparisons in the description not all equally obvious, though equally suitable. Their aptness more obvious and natural to an Oriental than a European reader. That aptness seen more in the general impression than in the particular resemblance. Beautiful and striking things in the person of a beloved one compared in the East by an ardent admirer, or by a writer of poetry, to other beautiful and striking things, where only a general or distinct resemblance might exist. The Bride’s breasts thus compared to ‘two twin fawns’ feeding among ‘lilies’ or in a flowery need; the prominent idea being probably that of love and conjugal enjoyment (Pro_5:19). Her fair neck, with its jewelled and golden ornaments, suggestive, in the eyes of Solomon, of the lofty marble ‘tower’ erected by his father David, with the glittering ‘shields’ of warriors suspended on its walls as indicative of the nation’s strength; thus conveying the idea of moral firmness, dignity, and purity in the Bride. Her black tresses—a prominent feature in Oriental female beauty—suggestive, to those accustomed to the pastoral scenes of Judæa, of ‘a flock of goats,’ with their long, dark, glossy hair, seen at a distance browsing on the mountain side; suggesting to us, however, the true ornament, not only of the female but of the Christian character in general—that ‘of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price’ (1Pe_3:3). The Bride’s ‘lips’ compared to a ‘thread of scarlet,’ as, while beautiful in themselves, suggesting a still greater charm,—the sweetness and comeliness of her ‘speech,’ as expressive of a pure, affectionate, and intelligent soul, and rendering her a meet companion for an enlightened husband; a prominent feature in a spiritual believer being that his ‘speech’ is ‘with grace, seasoned with salt;’ able to ‘minister grace to the hearers;’ and that ‘no corrupt communication’ is allowed to proceed out of his mouth, but ‘that which is good to the use of edifying’ (Col_4:6; Eph_4:29) The whole presence of the Bride suggests to the admiring husband a ‘mountain of myrrh’ and a ‘hill of frankincense,’ where all is fragrant, sweet, and delightful: what the pure-minded and loving wife is to her husband, and what the Church and the believer’s soul is, or ought to be, to Christ.
7. Christ’s great enjoyment in the grace and fellowship of His believing people. The Bridegroom, after surveying and admiring Shulamite’s unveiled charms, with the delightful consciousness that she is now all his own, resolves, for her comfort as well as his own, duly to enjoy her society and love. ‘Till the dawn and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh,’ &c. The ‘mountain of myrrh’ to Jesus is not so much the ‘quiring Seraphim’ and the angels of light, as ‘his people, whom he has redeemed with his most precious blood,’ whether these be triumphant in heaven or still militant on earth. ‘This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it’ (Psa_132:13-14). His place of enjoyment is among the ‘golden candlesticks,’ or Churches of the saints (Rev_2:1).
8. Christ’s presence in and with His Church promised during the whole of her stay in this world. That period, one of night—of darkness, danger, and discomfort (Rom_13:12). His second coming to His Church, the dawning of a bright and never-ending day. Till then His presence promised both to believers individually and to their assemblies convened in His name. (Joh_14:23; Mat_18:20). His promise to His servants and people in connection with the great commission: ‘Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world’ (Mat_28:20). The words of the text those of Jesus at the Supper Table in the upper room at Jerusalem: ‘I will not leave you comfort-less; I will come to you’ (Joh_14:18), Specimens of the fulfilment of the promise given immediately after His resurrection (Joh_20:16-28; Luk_24:15-32; Act_1:4).
9. The Church, both in its individual members and in its assemblies and ordinances, made a ‘mountain of myrrh and hill of frank-incense’ by the person of Jesus Himself. No fragrance or sweetness apart from Himself. ‘Thy name is as ointment poured forth.’ All His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Ordinances themselves insipid without Christ. Believers ‘stale and unprofitable,’ but as they have Christ dwelling in them by His Spirit. Christ the ‘bundle of myrrh’ that sweetens both the believer’s spirit and the Church’s ordinances. The care and concern of Churches and believers to be constantly, by the presence of Jesus and His Spirit, a mountain of myrrh and hill of frankincense.
10. If the Church on earth is made by the presence of Jesus a ‘mountain of myrrh and a hill of frankincense, what shall heaven be?’
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The offices of the Holy Spirit are manifold.
Son 4:16
The offices of the Holy Spirit are manifold.
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I. It is He who must convince us of sin (Joh 16:8).
II. Conversion, in its true and scriptural sense, a turning from wrong to right, is another part of the Holy Spirit’s work.
III. Another reason why we should devoutly beseech the Holy Spirit to blow upon the Lord’s garden, in which we have been planted, is that He may purify as by His grace.
IV. A fourth reason is that we may evermore rejoice in His holy comfort. Without the Holy Ghost, the garden of the Lord would be the most barren desert. He is our companion, teacher, advocate, friend, comforter.
V. We cannot dispense with the influences of the Spirit, because it is only when these are felt, that the spices in the Lord’s garden shed forth their abundant sweetness.
J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 285.
References: Son 4:16.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 61; J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 1st series, p. 80. 4—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 7; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 273; J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 164; J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 195; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 262. Son 5:1.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 919; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 170; J. M. Neale, Sermons on the Song of Songs, p. 205. Son 5:2.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1561; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 270; R. M. McCheyne, Additional Remains, p. 230.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Description of her Charms. Her Invitation
Description of her Charms. Her Invitation
1-7. This short poem belongs to the class which the Arabs call wasf, in which the bride's charms are described: they are sung while she is being dressed, or when she exhibits herself in her nuptial array, or on the day subsequent to the ceremony. Here is one that is still to be heard in Palestine:
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'Oh, her eyes are like the hue of ink drawn by the stylus,
And her hair, when she dyed it with henna, like birds'feathers;
Her nose as the handle of a ghttering Indian sword;
Her teeth like hailstones, yea, even more lovely;
Her cheeks like rosy apples of Damascus;
And her breasts lovely pomegranates, hanging on the tree;
Her neck like that of a scared antelope;
And her arms staves of pure silver;
And her fingers sharp-pointed pens of gold.'
1. The maiden's eyes are here compared to doves, peeping out from behind the veil (RV). As is usual with Syrian brides her hair is not braided, but hangs loosely down, like a flock of black goats which graze along the slope of a mountain, and look as though they were suspended from it (RV).
2. Her teeth are white, regular, a perfect set. Her cheek resembles the rich colours of the pomegranate. She has a swan's neck, a graceful, slender tower, hung round with ornaments, as the tower of David—whatever that may have been—was hung with shields (1Ki_10:16-17; 2Ki_11:10; Eze_27:11; Ezekiel 1Ma_4:57). For sweetness she may be compared to mountains on which odoriferous shrubs abound.
8. The idea conveyed by this abrupt and obscure v. seems to be that she will be perfectly safe, even in regions remote from home, and where many dangers lurk, if only her lover is at hand. His presence ensures happiness and security. The exclamation, 'Look,' etc., reminds us of a modern traveller's remark concerning the southern part of Lebanon: 'I have travelled in no part of the world where I have seen such a variety of glorious mountain scenes within so narrow a compass.' Amana may perhaps be the name of what is now called Jébel ez-Zebedâni, below which is the source of the river Amana or Abana (2Ki_5:12). On some inscriptions of the Assyrian kings the range of Anti-Libanus is called Ammana. Here, and at 1Ch_5:23, Shenir is distinguished from Hermon. The highest point of Hermon, Jébel el-Shêkh, 9,166 ft. high, is visible from the greater part of Palestine.
9-15. He praises her in ecstatic terms. In the ancient Egyptian love-songs the lovers call one another 'brother' and sister. One glance from her eyes, one pendant hanging from her neck, is enough to steal his heart, as it is said of Judith (Jdt_16:9), 'Her sandal ravished his eye.'
10. The smell of her garments is like the fresh and healthy odour of the cedars, or, as we in England should say, of the pinewoods: cp. Gen_27:27; Psa_45:8.
11. Honey and milk are most highly prized amongst Orientals (Isa_7:15).
12. She is as a garden barred (RM) to
13. Her charms are like the young plants in an orchard of pomegranates, protected from the depredations of wild beasts.
14. The saffron is the autumnal crocus, the dried flowers of which are employed in medicine, dyeing and perfumery. The thick, creeping rootstock of the calamus is pungent and aromatic. The resin of aloes is used in the preparation of incense.
15. The 'flowing' (RV) streams, etc., reminds us of the many streams which run into the sea between Tyre and Beyrout.
16. Accepting his figurative description of her, she bids him welcome. The colder north wind and the warmer south are naturally mentioned: not the east, which brings drought, nor the west, which carries moisture from the sea.
Son_5:1. The bridegroom's reply. He bids his friends follow his example: 'Drink, yea, drink freely of the delights of love' (RV).
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v9 The word "sister" here is of infinitely delicate significance,…
sister
The word "sister" here is of infinitely delicate significance, intimating the very whiteness of purity in the midst of an ardour which is, like the shekinah, aglow but unspeakably holy. Sin has almost deprived us of the capacity even to stand with unshod feet before this burning bush.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The King, the Bridegroom speaks of her, who is…
CHAPTER 4
The King, the Bridegroom speaks of her, who is “perfect through His comeliness put upon thee” Eze 16:14. He tells out all she is in His sight and loving estimation. He has called her from the lions’ den, from the mountains of the leopards (Son 4:8); she has passed through the fires of persecution and tribulation and now His heart expresses His delight in her. There are eight descriptions of her beauty. He tells her, “Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair.” And after the description of the beauty He beholds in her, whom He has brought out of the wilderness and out of the lions’ den, He says, “Thou art all fair, MY love; and there is no spot in thee.” He assures her of His delight in her. It is all His own workmanship; she has not made herself fair without a spot. His grace and power have accomplished it for her. And what is true of the bride-remnant of Israel is also true of the Church. In Him we have our completeness and perfection; His own comeliness and glory is bestowed upon us. The happy day is coming for Him and for us when He will present the church to Himself, “a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish” Eph 5:27.
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In Son 4:12-15 we have a beautiful description of the garden, the land of Israel in which His beloved is now planted once more. Here are found the precious fruits, as well as the spikenard and all the trees of frankincense. There is the fountain, the well of living waters; this as well as the north wind and the south wind, typifies the Holy Spirit. And she invites Him to come to His garden. “Let my Beloved come into His garden and eat its precious fruit.”
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 The Church’s State of Grace.
The Church’s State of Grace.
The Comeliness of the Church
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v. 1. Behold, thou art fair, My love, so the Bridegroom tells the Church; behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove’s eyes, or, "thy eyes are doves," gleaming in iridescent beauty, within thy locks, or "behind the veil"; thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear, or repose, from Mount Gilead, the country east of Jordan known for its fine cattle. The point of comparison is to he found in the glossy blackness and luxuriant abundance of Shulamith’s hair as well as in its silky softness and delicacy.
v. 2. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing, regular and snow-white; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them, the upper and the lower set of teeth being perfect and exactly corresponding to each other.
v. 3. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, their crimson forming a beautiful contrast to the dazzling whiteness of her teeth, and thy speech is comely, rather, "thy mouth is lovely," both in shape and in speech; thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate, whose cut segment offers a soft red mingled with creamy white, within thy locks.
v. 4. Thy neck is like the tower of David builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. The reference here is to graceful and powerful stateliness, enhanced by splendid ornaments.
v. 5. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, fawns, twins of a gazelle, which feed among the lilies, of delicate and exquisite beauty. This declaration on the part of the Bridegroom causes Shulamith to respond:
v. 6. Until the day break, rather, "until the day cools," until the approach of evening, and the shadows flee away, rapidly lengthening toward the east, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense, where she could commune with God in undisturbed solitude. And the King answers, in joyful approval:
v. 7. Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee.
We have here a fine description of the inner beauty of the Church, as Christ sees it, the purity, holiness, majesty, and glory which is known to Him, because wrought by Him. The Church and all its members should be distinguished by guilelessness, wisdom, faithfulness. Having received the riches of His grace, the believers have the finest apparel and ornaments, and their praise of the mercy of God received by them is lovely, their teaching wholesome and edifying. Moreover, the Church is in possession of eternal youth and offers a majestic appearance, while, at the same time, she is a true mother to all her children, who desire the sincere milk of the Word, that they may grow thereby. With such loveliness ascribed to her, the Church naturally vows to the Lord that she will keep her beauty unsullied, that it will be her steady endeavor to worship Him in spirit and in truth, whereupon He once more assures her that, through the merits of His righteousness transmitted to her, she is without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, holy and without blemish in His eyes, Eph 5:27, clean through the Word which He has spoken to her, Joh 15:3.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15 General Information:
General Information:
See: Poetry and Parallelism
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Your eyes are doves
One possibility is that the man is speaking of the woman's white eyeballs or the shape of her eyes, the shape of a dove. Another possibility is that the Israelites considered doves to be gentle and soft birds, and the man considers the woman's eyes beautiful because the way the woman looks at him makes him think she is gentle. See how you translated this in Song of Songs 1:15. AT: "You are very gentle" (See: Metaphor)
my love
"you whom I love." See how you translated this in Song of Songs 1:9.
Your hair is like a flock of goats going down from Mount Gilead
Goats in Israel were usually dark in color. The woman's hair was probably dark. You may need to specify that the goats were dark or even use another simile that the reader will understand that refers to something dark and beautiful. People thought of Mount Gilead as beautiful and fertile. The speaker considered the woman beautiful and ready to become the mother of his children. If you remove the simile of the goats, you may have to remove the simile of the mountain as well. AT: "Your hair is as dark as storm clouds above a fertile land" (See: Simile)
translationWords
dove
veil
flocks
goat
Gilead
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16 4:1–5:1 The consummation of the marriage is now expressed.…
4:1–5:1 The consummation of the marriage is now expressed. • This poem is the first “descriptive poem” in the book (see also 5:10-16; 6:4-6; 7:2-8). Scholars commonly refer to these poems by the Arabic term wasf (“description”); these poems are similar in form to songs sung at modern Arabic weddings. These sensuous poems are preludes to sexual intimacy. In their descriptions of physical beauty, they often move—as this one does—from the head downward.
4:1 my darling (literally companion): The man is about to consummate his love with the one who is his friend as well as lover (see also 4:7). • like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead: Middle Eastern goats are very dark, if not black. The woman’s hair flows over and down her lighter veil.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.