Song of Solomon 6

6: 1 WHITHER is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women? Whither hath thy beloved turned him, That we may seek him with thee?

2. My beloved is gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, To feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

3. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: He feedeth his flock among the lilies.

4. Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Overpowering as an army with banners.

5. Turn away thine eyes from me, For they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats, That lie along the side of Gilead.

6. Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes, Which are come up from the washing; Whereof every one hath twins, And none is bereaved among them.

7. Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate Behind thy veil.

8. There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, And virgins without number.

9. My dove, my undefiled, is but one; She is the only one of her mother; She is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and called her blessed; Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

10. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning,

Fair as the moon, Clear as the sun, Overpowering as an army with banners?

11. I went down into the garden of nuts, To see the green plants of the valley, To see whether the vine budded, And the pomegranates were in flower.

12. Or ever I was aware, my soul set me Among the chariots of my princely people.

13. Return, return, O Shulammite; Return, return, that we may look upon thee.

Why will ye look upon the Shulammite, As upon the dance of Mahanaim?

7: 1 How beautiful are thy feet in sandals, O prince’s daughter! Thy rounded thighs are like jewels, The work of the hands of a cunning workman.

2. Thy body is like a round goblet, Wherein no mingled wine is wanting: Thy waist is like an heap of wheat Set about with lilies.

3. Thy two breasts are like two fawns That are twins of a roe.

4. Thy neck is like the tower of ivory; Thine eyes as the pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim; Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon Which looketh toward Damascus.

5. Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, And the hair of thine head like purple; The king is held captive in the tresses thereof.

1, 2. Whither is thy beloved gone?

This question put by the chorus, and the answer it receives from the bride, show that the loss and seeking are not to be taken too seriously. The bride, knowing better than her friends where the beloved is to be found, answers, without hesitation, that he is gone down into his garden and its spice-beds to feed his flock (in his character of shepherd, compare 1:7), and gather lilies (for her—so Bossuet); actions contradictory and irrational if the words be literally understood. What the bride means is, that he, of whom she speaks, is a royal shepherd (possessed of a garden of rarest spices), and her own true friend to whom she also belongs, her “shepherd among lilies.” T. L. K.

2,3. It is remarkable how naturally the assurances of mutual devotion between her Lord and herself blend here with the love of nature—the beauties of flowers and the odors of sweet spices. Perhaps this may be a foreshadowing of the joys of the Paradise above. If in this world, so fearfully cursed with sin, God has yet lavished such a wealth of beauty and loveliness, what may we not anticipate in that pure heaven where no sin exists to demand an expression of God’s displeasure; where there is nothing to impose limitations upon the exuberant fulness of God’s love of the beautiful, or upon His delight in the varied and endlessly diversified bliss of His obedient children! H. C.

3. I am my beloved’s.** Repeated from chap. 2:16, with a significant inversion. In that day of early love her first boast was her possession of him, “My beloved is mine;” now bound to him by closer ties, she begins by confessing that she is his. T. L. K.—So long as marriage remains the type of the union of the soul with God, of Christ with the Church; so long as the faithful attachment of one soul to another shadows forth the love of the heavenly Lover who “loved us and gave Himself for us,” so long will religious feeling express itself in the language of the Canticles, so long will the soul that “is joined to the Lord” utter, as its deepest cry of adoration to its Redeemer, the words of the Song of Songs, “My Beloved is mine and I am His.” E. Hopkins.

When Christ comes anew and reveals Himself to the soul free and full as ever, in another way than He doth unto the world, then the soul can say, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” Not that the believer can use these words at all seasons. In times of darkness and in times of sinfulness, the reality of a believer’s faith is to be measured rather by his sadness than by his confidence. But in seasons when Christ reveals Himself afresh to the soul, shining out like the sun from behind a cloud, with the beams of sovereign, unmerited love—then no other words will satisfy the true believer but these, “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.”

When first he hid himself in Jesus, he found Him suitable to all his need—the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. But now he sees Jesus to be so full a Saviour, giving to the sinner not only pardons, but overflowing, immeasurable pardons; giving not only righteousness, but a righteousness that is all Divine; giving not only His Spirit, but pouring water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. The soul sees all this in Jesus, and cannot but choose Him and delight in Him with a new and appropriating love, saying, “My Beloved is mine.” And if any man ask, “How darest thou, sinful worm, to call that Divine Saviour thine?” The answer is here, “For I am His.” He chose me from all eternity, else I never would have chosen Him. He shed His blood for me, else I never would have shed a tear for Him. He cried after me, else I never would have breathed after Him. He sought me, else I never would have sought after Him. He hath loved me, therefore I love Him. He hath chosen me, therefore I evermore choose Him. “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” McCheyne.

The dearest affections of Christ and the saints in heaven are mutual and reflexive. His propriety in the Church is His unvaluable treasure. He repeats the word mine in the sweetest and most tender manner. And the Church, with the same harmonious affections, speaks of Christ. My Beloved is the chiefest of ten thousand, He is altogether lovely. My Beloved is mine, and I am His. By all their expressions of joyful love and union, we may ascend in our thoughts and foretaste the joys of heaven, where the communion of Christ and the Church is entire and uninterrupted forever. If faith and love of our unseen Saviour produce “a joy unspeakable and glorious,” as if believers were wrapt up to Paradise, or Paradise descended into them, what will be the sight and fruition of Him? Bates.

The Beloved’s Commendation of the Bride. Vs. 4-9.

4. Fair.** The fourth time that the bride is thus addressed at the commencement of a fresh dialogue. Tirzah and Jerusalem, named together as the then two fairest cities in the land.

5-7. Now follows the longest of the repetitions of the Song, marking the continuance of the king’s affection as when first solemnly proclaimed (4:1-6). So Ibn Ezra, following the Targum: “The beloved repeats the same things here to show that it is still his own true bride to whom he speaks, the sameness in the features proving it.”

8. There are threescore queens.** An allusion to what may have been historical fact when the Song was written. The numbers (according to 1 Kings 11:2, 3) were afterward enormously increased.

9. My dove.** The king proceeds in a yet tenderer strain to contrast the bride with all these other claimants for her royal estate or favor. She not only outshines them all for him, but herself has received from them disinterested blessing and praise:

“One only is my dove, my perfect one, Her mother’s only-loved one she, The darling one of her that gave her birth;

The daughters gazed on her and called her blessed,

The queens and concubines, and sang her praise.”

Allegorical interpreters have found it difficult to assign to this passage in all its details a good mystical sense, but in its ethical significance it is invaluable as a Divine witness to the principle of monogamy, under the Old Testament and in the luxurious age of Solomon.

10-13. This part of the Song commences with a short dialogue between the bride and the chorus, who address her, here only, as the Shulamite, and beg her to perform for their entertainment a sacred dance (7:1) of her own country (6:10-13). The bride, complying with their request, they sing some stanzas in her praise (7:1-5).

10. Who is she; or, this, as at 3:6. The question is asked by the chorus. As the morning. The glorious beauty of the bride bursts upon them like a second dawn (so the word ought to be rendered here, as at Josh. 6:15), as she comes forth to meet them at the commencement of another day.

11,12. The bride answers, recalling the occasion on which she first met with the king, and won the love which has thus exalted her. Her words might be thus paraphrased: “You speak of me as a glorious beauty; I was lately but a simple maiden engaged in rustic toils. I went down one day into the walnut-garden to inspect the young plants of the vale” (i.e., the wady, or watercourse, with now verdant banks in the early spring after the rainy season), “and to watch the budding and blossoming of vine and pomegranate. Then, suddenly, ere I was myself aware, my soul” (the soul, the seat of the affections, is here the love-bound heart); “had made me the chariot of a lordly people” (i.e., an exalted personage, one who rides on the high places of the earth). Ammi-nadib; literally, my people a noble one. The reference is either to Israel at large as a wealthy and dominant nation under Solomon, or to the bride’s own people (the Shulamites) in particular, to the chief place among whom, by her union with the king, she is now exalted.

13. Return, return. About to withdraw, the bride is recalled by the chorus, desiring yet a little longer to contemplate a grace and beauty which has won all hearts. The plural (“that we may gaze on thee”) indicates the chorus as the speakers The king has not yet appeared. O Shulamite. Probably the same as “Shunamite,” i.e., a native of the town or district of Shunem, situated in the territory of Issachar. T. L. K.

In this Song the names of the two leading personages are specially significant. The name Solomon (Hebrew, Shelomoh) means the peaceful one, the prince of peace. (It occurs in the Song, in chaps. 1:1; 3:11; 8:11, 12.) Whoever will carefully read Psalm 72, considered as written either by Solomon himself or by his father for him, and bearing in mind this significance of his name, will see that the very name had an outlook toward the person and work of the great Messiah. This view will be very much confirmed if we consider the promise made to David (2 Sam. 7:12-17, 19, 29) of a royal son whose rule should be universal, His influence most blessed, and His sway eternal—a son, not Solomon himself, but one like him in certain points yet indefinitely greater. Hence Solomon’s use of his own name in this Song may certainly be supposed to look toward the typical or rather the prophetical use of his own name. This becomes far more obvious when we pass from the name of Solomon to that of his bride. It is Shulamith (twice occurring) (6:13), which is probably the Hebrew feminine of Shelomoh (Solomon). If he is the prince of peace she is the princess of peace. If his name bears in it a prophetic outlook toward the great Messiah, so does hers toward the bride of the Messiah, the Lamb’s wife. H. C.

Dance of Mahanaim. The word generally designates a festival or sacred dance. But what is meant by the dance of Mahanaim? The reply can only be conjectural. First, Manahaim was a Levitical city (Josh. 21:34, 38), among the mountains of Gilead, deriving probably both its sacred character and its name (“the twofold camp”) from the angelic vision there vouchsafed to Jacob (Gen. 27:1-3). Annual festivals may have been held in memory of this event, at which the maidens came forth in the dances as at Shiloh (Jud. 21:21), so that “the dance of Mahanaim” would simply be a well-known sacred dance, taking its name from the locality in which it originated. Second, the word “Mahanaim” became in later Hebrew an ordinary designation for “the angels” or “angelic hosts” (Delitzsch). Some accordingly would render here “a dance, as it were, of angel-choirs,” i.e., one of peculiar grace and beauty, “perform for us some beautiful dance like those of the angel-choirs in heaven.” The former of these interpretations is to be preferred. Nor is there anything incongruous with Oriental custom in a company of ladies asking one of their number to dance before them.

The Dance of Mahanaim. Vs. 7:1-5.

The Shulamite complies with the request of her attendants, and as she glides before them in the dance they sing in further commendation of her beauty of form and grace of movement (Delitzsch). The description borrows images (like those of chaps. 4, 5, and 6) from the whole range of nature and art in various parts of the Hebrew monarchy, differing, however, from all others in one respect, that the forms of beauty here enumerated are contemplated as in active movement before the eyes of the spectator. Beginning with the sandalled feet, as was natural in speaking of a dancing figure, it ends with the head and its wealth of native ornament, reversing the order of description in chap. 4:1-5. It consists, like that, of five stanzas nearly coinciding with the verses in the text. T. L. K.

All the monuments and pictures of ancient Egypt show us that the ancient Oriental ladies dressed so as to leave the busts fully open to view, and, of course, there could then be no impropriety in alluding to or describing that part of the person. It may be added, that this is the custom of modern Oriental as well as of ancient Oriental dress; and we have ourselves seen women who would sooner die than allow their faces to be viewed by strangers, and sooner be flayed alive than be seen with the top of the head uncovered, who would, at the same time, be perfectly indifferent as to a display of a part of their persons which is in Europe carefully veiled. Yet even in this respect the customs of the East and West were not so different a few generations ago as they are at present, and hence there are expressions in our own poets parallel to those of Solomon, but which excited not the least uneasiness even in the most delicate minds, in the age in which they were produced. It was in such an age that our translation of the Bible was made; and it does hence contain some expressions unsuited to the higher standard of Christian refinement which we have now reached. But these might be altered not only with safety, but with advantage to the sense; for in this particular book of Solomon, it is especially allowed by all good scholars, that even to those who look only to the first or literal sense, and whose eyes are shut to the spiritual meaning, the Song of Songs is in the original a much more readable book than the authorized version represents it to be. Kitto.

5. Thine head upon thee. Compare and contrast with chap. 5:15. The king’s aspect is there likened to the majestic heights of Lebanon, the bride’s head here to the soft and rounded top of Carmel. Hair . . . like purple. The ancient purple was of different shades, from bright red to a deep violet black. The deepest shade is here meant. The king. No definite article in the Hebrew. The indefinite—“a king is bound in the tresses or windings of thy hair”—is much more poetical. The words indicate the king’s approach, who is the next speaker. T. L. K.