Song of Solomon 6

Song of Solomon 6:1

The Beautiful Woman behind the Veil An EasyEnglish Bible Version and Commentary (1200 word vocabulary) on the Song of Songs www.easyenglish.info Sarah Ruth This commentary has been through Advanced Checking.

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Chapter 6 Friends v1 You are the most beautiful among women.

 Where has the man who loves you gone?

 Which way did he turn so that we can look for him with you? Woman v2 The man who loves me has gone down to his garden.

 He has gone to where the plants with a lovely smell grow.

 He has gone there to walk in the gardens and to pick *lilies.

v3 This man loves me and I am his. And he is mine.

 He is walking among the *lilies.

Maybe the fact is that the man got up early in the morning. The woman saw him leave the room but she was half-asleep. She began to sleep again. That is when she had the bad dream.

Now she is awake. The friends have asked her where he will be. She thinks that he has gone down to his garden. The words ‘garden’ and ‘*lilies’ cause her to think about the times when he has kissed her. She remembers that they have enjoyed sex. She knows that he does still love her. It is a fact. So she goes to him. Man v4 You are my best friend that I love the most.

 You are as beautiful as Tirzah.

 You are as lovely as Jerusalem.

  Everyone sees you easily.

  You are like an army that is holding up its beautiful cloth with bright colours.

v5 Turn your eyes away from me.

 They cause a lot of pleasure for me.

 But the pleasure is too strong for me!

Your hair is like a group of goats.

 It is like goats that are coming down from *Mount Gilead.

v6 Your teeth are white like a group of sheep.

 They are like clean sheep that come out of the pool.

 Each tooth is one of a pair. Not one of them is alone.

v7 The sides of your face are round like the halves of a *pomegranate.

Your *veil hides them.

Tirzah and Jerusalem are both beautiful capital cities.

The man and woman meet in the garden. Again, the man tells his wife how beautiful she is. She is so beautiful that her husband can hardly look at her! Some people may be surprised when they look at her. They may even be afraid of her, as they would be afraid of a large army. That is what the man thinks. Man v8 There may be 60 queens.

And a king may have 80 other wives.

He may have many young women who do not yet have children.

 There may be too many for him to count!

v9 But there is only one woman that I want.

 Nobody is like her in any way.

 She is lovely like a *dove.

  She is mine.

  Nobody else is lovelier.

She is the special daughter of her mother.

 The woman who gave birth to her likes her best among all her children.

The young women saw that she was now happier.

The queens and the other wives said ‘Well done!’

 They all said,

v10 ‘She appears like the dawn.

  She is lovelier every moment like the sunrise.

 She is as pretty as the moon.

  She is very beautiful to look at!

 She is bright, like the sun.

There she stands, beautiful and important.

 It is like the way that God has put each star like a king or a queen in its place.’

Maybe verses 8 to 10 are only in the man’s mind. He uses the word ‘she’, not the word ‘you’.

The numbers in verse 8 are big numbers. That is all. The writer does not mean more than that. The man is saying that there are many women. He may know many women. But the woman that he loves is very different from any of them. There is nobody as lovely as she is!

The woman’s mother may have had one daughter. Or she may have had more than one daughter. But she liked this daughter more than her other children. All the women have agreed that she is very special and lovely. Now that she has married her man, she is stronger in her *spirit. And now she feels happier when other people look at her.

When the man looks at his wife, she gives pleasure to him. She is so beautiful that even he may be a little afraid of her. Man v11 I went down to the small wood where there are trees with dry, hard fruit.

 I wanted to see what had started to grow in the valley.

 I wanted to see if the *vines had flowers now.

 I wanted to see if the *pomegranates had flowers.

v12 I did not have time to understand everything about it.

 But I knew that I really wanted her.

 This put me among the king’s *chariots with the king’s men.

The man has gone to the garden. He wants to know how the plants are growing. Then he sees his wife. He feels pleasure in his body. And he knows that he wants her. He wants her even more now than he did before. This makes him sure in his mind. This is the most important thing to him now. He thinks about it all the time. He wants her to be his woman only. He may be afraid of future events. But he is really happy that she has chosen to be his wife.

It is difficult to know what the writer means in verse 12. It may mean that these thoughts are the same as soldiers’ thoughts during a war. When they are fighting, they are thinking about the war. They may be afraid. But the king has chosen them to fight for him. So they think about how to fight. They do not think about anything else. They must get what they want. They must beat their enemies.

Or the writer may mean only that the man feels very special and important. This is because such a beautiful lady has become his wife. Friends v13a Come back, come back, *Shulammite woman.

 Come back! Come back!

We want to look at you for a long time. Man v13b Do not look for a long time at the *Shulammite woman.

 Do not look at her as you would look at the dance at *Mahanaim.

Shulammite is a woman’s name like Solomon. Also, it may mean, ‘People who are near her feel good and happy’. The lady was very lovely to look at! Even the friends wanted to continue to look at her. She was walking, or maybe she was dancing. It was beautiful.

Mahanaim is the name of a place. King David put his soldiers together in groups there before they fought. They stopped to eat and to sleep there. Sometimes a young woman danced in front of the soldiers. The man is saying that his wife is not like a young dancing woman. She is certainly more important to him than that. She does not dance so that everyone can enjoy it. Maybe she only wants to dance for her husband. Or, she dances because she is happy. That is all.

© 1997-2012, Wycliffe Associates (UK)

This publication is written in EasyEnglish Level A (1200 words).

March 2012

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