Chapter 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 3
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Jewish Publication Society Tanakh, 1917 |
Thoughts on the text |
1
Her |
I am a rose of Sharon,
A lily of the valleys.
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Rose (or crocus) of Sharon/valley-lily.
She is not bragging on herself. Basically she is saying she is just a
wild-flower, particularly in light of the previous chapter (v. 5) where she
says she has been tanned (which she regards as bad—some
things do change. See my comments there).
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2
Him |
As a lily among thorns,
So is my love among the daughters.
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He responds by turning her self-negation around, a lily among
thorns.
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3
Her |
As an apple-tree among the trees of the wood,
So is my beloved among the sons.
Under its shadow I delighted to sit,
And its fruit was sweet to my taste.
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She responds in kind, comparing him to an apricot tree
(probably—“cultivated apples are a relatively recent development,
while the wild apple, which is not indigenous to Palestine anyway, is
scarcely edible” [M.V. Fox] [The old adage “As American as apple pie” is
actually accurate. It was invented at Valley Forge to feed the starving
troops with what had been previously considered junk fruit.]). She rests
in his shade, and loves his ‘fruit’ (probably kisses).
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4 |
He hath brought me to the banqueting-house,
And his banner over me is love.
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Banqueting-house. Fox: “house of wine,” not ‘banqueting hall’ (a
translation based on the unlikely assumption that this is a wedding).
Some have made the also unlikely proposal that this refers to a pub, but
that does not fit the context here at all. More likely, this is simply
where the wine is kept, but it could be where it is drunk, and if so, it
might be the same as ‘the king’s bedroom’ in the previous chapter
(harkening back to their outdoor tryst referenced
in 1.16f). They
are looking for some privacy, and he has some designs.
His banner over me. The word translated ‘banner’ (diglô) has
been the subject of much discussion over the last more than a century.
G. Buchanan Gray argued, based on its use mostly in
Numbers, that its basic meaning is ‘a military unit.’
More recently,
Yakov Eidelkind seems to concur, and notes some
non-biblical usages where love is described using military analogies.
This is also how the LXX translators read it, as did the Peshitta
(Syriac) and the Vulgate (Latin) (although, admittedly, the latter two
tend to lean toward the LXX anyway). This would give us something like,
‘array
love over me’ (Jay Treat).
Eidelkind also tells us that at Qumran dgl is used to mean a
‘sign’ or ‘symbol.’ This gets us closer to ‘banner,’ although its application
is much broader than just military.
In 1969,
Robert Gordis pointed that the Akkadian cognate, dagalu,
meaning ‘look,’ could lead us to read this as something like ‘his glance
toward me was love.’
Taking it a step further, Marvin Pope
argued from the same cognate that the Hebrew in this place must mean
‘intent’ (it can mean that elsewhere in Akkadian). Following Pope apparently,
the NRSV has “His intention toward me was love.” Fox asserts that this
must mean the physical expression. The ‘love’ word here, it should be
noted however, is ahavah, which is
not normally about sex (unlike dôday), and quite likely
isn’t here either.
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5 |
‘Stay ye me with dainties, refresh me with apples;
For I am love-sick.’
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‘Put me to bed,’ rather than Stay me which goes better with
‘love-sick’ because when you are sick, you go to bed. Of course, lovers
do other things with a bed, and remember that the apricots
(apples) are probably his kisses. What some translations have
as ‘raisin cakes’ (JPS: dainties) are probably ‘fruit clusters.’
The raisin cakes would, I suspect, inappropriately invoke the
Ishtar-Dumuzi myth.
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6 |
Let his left hand be under my head,
And his right hand embrace me.
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The context suggests that they have fallen asleep in each other’s arms;
she does not want to be disturbed.
The gazelles and hinds of the field may provide an exception to
the observation that God is not referred to in this book.
Gazelles - ţavaot
is the same word used in Yahweh Ţavaot (LORD of hosts).
Hinds of the field (’aylot haššadeh) may invoke
’el šadday (El Shaddai), although
less obviously (the ‘-ot’ ending could be a sort of plural of majesty, as most suggest the
‘-im’ in Elohim to be). Clearly it is part of an invocation—‘by the one and the other’).
Either way the animals are epitomes of fertility in Mesopotamian literature.
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7 |
‘I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles, and by the hinds of the field,
That ye awaken not, nor stir up love,
until it please.’
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2.8-15 |
We seem to be in a different time in the next section. It may be that the whole song is
a mish-mash, but perhaps it is a flash-back to an earlier part of the day, or of their
courtship in general. She is at home in bed. He comes to her window and is trying to
persuade her to get up and run off with him. As I read it, she quotes a proverb to him,
the message being that young women need to watch out for lascivious young men who want
what they are not supposed to get. By the way, this is one of the parts that make it
real hard to see her lover as the actual King. Kings do not generally run around peering
through the windows of the peasant houses. Besides if she tends sheep, her house is
probably not in the ‘big city’ anyway.
Read spiritually, this is obviously God calling
to us to ‘come away’ with him. Is it significant that it is in the morning? Her reticence
is correct, but wrong. I often think that ours is, too. There are things we should be
doing, we have responsibilities, etc. His call to her is improper. I think there is a
level at which that is true for us as well. I don’t want to normalize this by saying
that ‘we let other things get in the way.’ His desire for her overrides what is humanly
‘proper,’ as does hers for him.
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8 |
Hark! my beloved!
behold, he cometh,
Leaping upon the mountains,
skipping upon the hills.
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9 |
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart;
Behold, he standeth behind our wall,
He looketh in through the windows,
He peereth through the lattice.
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10 |
My beloved spoke, and said unto me:
‘Rise up, my love,
my fair one, and come away.
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11 |
For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
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You might be thinking that ‘April showers bring May flowers,’ but in Palestine, winter is
the rainy season. So this does not mean, “winter and spring are both over, now it is
summer.” It just means winter is over, it is spring, the time for love and all that.
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12 |
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing is come,
And the voice of the turtle
is heard in our land;
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And the voice of the turtle is heard. This is the literal
translation. I have heard folks say that turtles don’t have voices, but I
used to live by a pond, and I guarantee that they do, and their voices are
used for mating. They don’t sound that good, though (except to the girl
turtles, I assume)! However, The time of singing probably
refers to bird song. Recognizing that the ‘turtles’ are likely some
kind of birds, translations often say ‘turtledove’; I suspect that this
is because in English we conveniently have a bird named after the
turtle. The actual bird being referred to in Hebrew is probably lost to
us, except that apparently it could sing. The dove is mentioned, however,
in vs. 14, which could possibly suggest a connection.
The time of singing can also mean, ‘the time of pruning,’
though. Fox sees in this an intentional ambivalence.
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13 |
The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs,
And the vines in blossom
give forth their fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
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14
Him |
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
in the covert of the cliff,
Let me see thy countenance,
let me hear thy voice;
For sweet is thy voice,
and thy countenance is comely.’
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15 |
‘Take us the foxes,
the little foxes,
that spoil the vineyards;
For our vineyards are in blossom.’
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This is the, “girls, watch out for those boys” proverb I was referring to earlier.
The girls are the vineyards in bud, which makes the boys the foxes (jackals and wolves are
lusty lovers in the Egyptian songs). Remember the girl’s reference to her womanhood
as a ‘vineyard’ in
1.6.
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16
Her |
My beloved is mine, and I am his,
That feedeth among the lilies.
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[He] feedeth among the lilies. He ‘feasts’ on her pleasures. The term for ‘grazes’
often has sexual implications (see
5.1 and
Prov. 29.3=’consort with [lit. feed] harlots’).
It is also cognate with the term he uses throughout SoS
for her, ra‘yaty —“my darling.”
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17 |
Until the day breathe,
and the shadows flee away,
Turn, my beloved,
and be thou like a gazelle
Or a young hart
upon the mountains of spices.
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If this is part of vss. 8-15, then she is telling him to get lost
(before dawn, turn [and leave]—i.e. don’t let my brothers find you).
If not, we may be back into the mutual admiration section.
The mountains of Spices/Division/Bet(h)er. The word does mean
‘cleft’, and the mountains are in the plural. But the Syriac has
‘spices’ for beter (which may, however, be under the influence of
8.14). It could refer to a real mountain: Bittîr south of Jerusalem
where gazelles and roes can still be seen. On the one hand, we may have
another case of double-entendre here in which it refers to her breasts
(where she has cleavage and keeps her spices, according to
1.13).
Other writers see a reference to her mons pubis, which obviously
has a cleft and its own set of spices. Whether you read vs. 16 & 17 as
part of 8-15 may determine if such a double-entendre is intended.
At any rate, if they are not yet intimate at this point, him making
such references to her nether region don’t seem appropriate.
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argued from the same cognate that the Hebrew in this place must mean
‘intent’ (it can mean that elsewhere in Akkadian). Following Pope apparently,
the NRSV has “His intention toward me was love.” Fox asserts that this
must mean the physical expression. The ‘love’ word here, it should be
noted however, is ahavah, which is
not normally about sex (unlike dôday), and quite likely
isn’t here either. 
