Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The first act of the melodrama, which presents the loving relationship in the glow of the first love, now opens. i. 5, 6, are evidently the words of Shulamith. Here one person speaks of herself throughout in the singular. But in vers. 2-4 one and several together speak, Ewald also attributes vers. 2-4 to Shulamith, as words spoken by her concerning her shepherd and to him. She says, “ Draw me after thee, so will we run,” for she wishes to be brought by him out of Solomon’s court. But how can the praise, “an ointment poured forth is thy name,’—an expression which reminds us of what is said of Solomon, 1 Kings v. 11 [1 Kings iv. 31], “ and his fame was in all nations round about,’—be applicable to the shepherd? How could Shulamith say to the shepherd, “ virgins love thee,” and including herself with others, say to him also, “we will exult and rejoice in thee”? on which Ewald remarks: it is asif something kept her back from speaking of herself alone. How this contradicts the psychology of love aiming at marriage! This love is jealous, and does not draw in rivals by head and ears. No; in vers. 2-4 it is the daughters of Jerusalem, whom Shulamith addresses in ver. 5, who speak. The one who is praised is Solomon. The ladies of the palace are at table (vid. under ver. 12), and Solomon, after whom she who is placed amid this splendour which is strange to her asks longingly (ver. 7), is not now present. The two pentastichal strophes, vers. 2-4, are a scholion, the table song of the ladies; the solo in both cases passes over into a chorus.

Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth, we at once perceive that she who here speaks is only one of many among whom Solomon’s kisses are distributed; for min is partitive, as eg. Ex. xvi. 27 (cf. Jer. xlviii. 32 and Isa. xvi. 9), with the underlying phrase ΠΡ) Pw, osculum osculari= figere, jungere, dare. Nashak properly means to join to each other and to join together, particularly mouth to mouth, 32 is the parallel form of "3, and is found in prose as well as in poetry; it is here preferred for the sake of the rhythm. Béttcher prefers, with Hitzig, ΡΝ (“let him give me to drink”); but “to give to drink with kisses” is an expression unsupported.

In line 2 the expression changes into an address: For better is thy love than wine.

Instead of “ thy love,” the LXX. render “thy breasts,” for they had before them the word written defectively as in the traditional text, and read 73. Even granting that the dual 0° or 0° could be used in the sense of the Greek μαστοί (Rev. i. 13),' of the breasts of a man (for which Isa. xxxii. 12, Targ., furnishes no sufficient authority); yet in the mouth of a woman it were unseemly, and also is itself absurd as the language of praise. But, on the other hand, that ἢ ΥῚ is not the true reading (“for more lovely—thus he says to me—are,” etc.), R. Ismael rightly says, in reply to R. Akiba, Aboda zara 29b, and refers to 722” following (v er. 3), which requires the mas. for 7". Rightly the Gr. Venet. of σοὶ ἔρωτες, for 0°17 is related to M378, almost as ἔρως to ἀγάπη, Minne to Liebe. It is a plur. like Dyn, which, although a pluraletantum, is yet connected with the plur. of the pred. The verbal stem Ἢ is an abbreviated reduplicative stem (Ewald, § 118. 1); the root 11 appears to signify “to move by thrusts or pushes” (vid. under Ps. xlii. 5); of a fluid, “ to cause to boil up,” to which the word 15, a kitchen-pot, is referred. It is the very same verbal stem from which 3 (David), the beloved, and the name of the foundress of Carthage, 77% (= ji) Minna, is derived. The adj. tov appears here and at 3a twice in its nearest primary meaning, denoting that which is pleasant to the taste and (thus particularly in Arab.) to the smell.

This comparison suaves prae vino, as well as that which in line 3 of the pentastich, ver. 3,

To the smell thy ointments are sweet, shows that when this song is sung wine is presented and perfumes are sprinkled; but the love of the host is, for those who sing, more excellent than all. It is maintained that ™ signifies fragrance emitted, and not smell. Hence Hengst., Hahn, Holem., and Zock. explain: in odour thy ointments are sweet. Now the words can certainly, after Josh. xxii. 10, Job xxxii 4, 1 Kings x. 23, mean “ sweet in (of) smell;” but in such cases the word with Lamed of reference naturally stands after that to which it gives the nearer reference, not as here before it. Therefore Hengst.: ad odorem unguentorem tuorum quod attinet bonus est, but such giving prominence to the subject and

2 Yet it is a question whether ΤΊ, to love, and 4, the breast (Arab. thady, with a verb thadiyi, to be thoroughly wet), are not after their nearest origin such words of feeling, caressing, prattling, as the Arab. dad, sport (also dadad, the only Arab. word which consists of the same three letters); cf. Fr. dada, hobbyhorse.

attraction (cf. 1 Sam. ii. 4a; Job xv. 20) exclude one another; the accentuation correctly places n} out of the gen. connection, Certainly this word, like the Arab. ryh, elsewhere signifies odor, and the Hiph. NMI (arah) odorari; but why should not mn be also used in the sense of odoratus, sce in the post-bibl. Heb. nin vin means the sense of smell, and also in Germ. “ riechen” means to emit fragrance as well as to perceive fragrance? We explain after Gen. ii. 9, where Lamed introduces the sense of sight, as here the sense of smell. Zockl. and others reply that in such a case the word would have been nd; but the art. is wanting also at Gen. ii. 9 (cf. iii. 6), and was not necessary, especially in poetry, which has the same relation to the art. as to asher, which, wherever practicable, is omitted. Thus in line 4: An ointment poured forth is thy name.

By “ thy ointments,” line 3, spices are meant, by which the palace was perfumed; but the fragrance of which, as line 4 says, is surpassed by the fragrance of his name, OW (name) and }2¥ (fragrance) form a paranomasia by which the comparison is brought nearer Eccles. vii. 1. Both words are elsewhere mas.; but sooner than ov, so frequently and universally mas. (although its plur. is nin’, but ef. nias), jow may be used as fem., although a parallel example is wanting (cf. d‘vdsh, mdr, népheth, kémah, and the like, which are constantly mas.). Ewald therefore translates pwn jow as a proper name: “0 sweet Salbenduft” [Fragrance of Ointment]; and Bottcher sees in ¢urdk a subst. in the sense of “sprinkling” [Spreng-Oel]; but a name like “ Rosenoel” [oil of roses] would be more appropriately formed, and a subst. form ΡΠ is, in Heb. at least, unexampled (for neither 1337 nor 23, in the name Tubal-Cain, is parallel). Fiirst imagines “a province in Palestine where excellent oil was got,” called Zurak; “Turkish” Rosenol recommends itself, on the contrary, by the fact of its actual existence. Certainly less is hazarded when we regard shémén, as here treated exceptionally, as fem.; thus, not: wt unguentum nomen tuum effunditur, which, besides, 15 unsuitable, since one does not empty out or pour out a name; but: wnguentum quod effunditur (Hengst., Hahn, and others), an ointment which is taken out of its depository and is sprinkled far and wide, is thy name. The harsh expression Ὁ ΠΥ is intentionally avoided; the old Heb. language is not φιλομέτοχος (fond of participles); and, besides, p11 sounds badly with p71», to rub off, to wash away. Perhaps, also, P31’ {OW is intentionally avoided, because of the collision of the weak sounds n and 7. The name Shém is derived from the verb shamd, to be high, prominent, remarkable: whence also the name for the heavens (vid. under Ps. viii. 2). That attractive charm (lines 2, 3), and this glory (line 4), make him, the praised, an object of general love, line 5, ver. 3b: Therefore virgins love thee.

This “therefore” reminds us of Ps. xlv. Mid? (sing. Isa. vii. 14), from py (Arab.), ghalima, pubescere, are maidens growing to maturity. The intrans. form 29%, with transitive signification, indicates a pathos. The perf. is not to be translated dilererunt, but is to be judged of according to Gesen. § 126. 3: they have acquired love to thee (= love thee), as the ἠγάπησάν σε of the Greek translators is to be understood. The singers themselves are the evidence of the existence of this love.

With these words the first pentastich of the table-song terminates. The mystical interpretation regards it as a song of praise and of loving affection which is sung to Christ the King, the fairest of the children of men, by the church which is His own. The Targum, in line first, thinks of the “ mouth to mouth” (Num. xii. 8] in the intercourse of Moses with God. Evidence of divine love is also elsewhere thought of as a kiss: the post-bibl. Heb. calls the gentlest death the death npws3, ic. by which God takes away the soul with a kiss.

The second pentastich also begins with a solo:

Ver. 4 Draw me, 80 will we run after thee. All recent interpreters (except Béttcher) translate, like Luther, “Draw me after thee, so we run.” Thus also the Targ., but doubtfully: Trahe nos post te et curremus post viam bonitatis tuae. But the accentuation which gives Tiphcha to '¥© requires the punctuation to be that adopted by the Peshito and the Vulg., and according to which the passage is construed by the Greeks (except, perhaps, by the Quinta): Draw me, so will we, following thee, run (vid. Dachselt, Biblia Accentuata, p. 983 5). In reality, this word needs no complement: of itself it already means, one drawing towards, or to himself; the corresponding (Arab.) masak signifies, prehendere prehensumque tenere; the root is W, palpare, contrectare. It occurs also elsewhere, in a spiritual connection, as the expression of the gentle drawing of love towards itself (Hos. xi. 4; Jer. xxxi. 3); ef. ἑλκύειν, John vi. 44, xii. 32. If one connects “ after thee” with “draw me,” then the expression seems to denote that a certain violence is needed to bring the one who is drawn from her place; but if it is connected with “we will run,” then it defines the desire to run expressed by the cohortative, more nearly than a willing obedience or following. The whole chorus, continuing the solo, confesses that there needs only an indication of his wish, a direction given, to make those who here speak eager followers of him whom they celebrate. In what follows, this interchange of the solo and the wnisono is repeated: Ver. 4b If the king has brought me into his chambers, So will we exult and rejoice in thee.

We will praise thy love more than wine! Uprightly have they loved thee,

The cohortative 732 (we will run) was the apodosis imperativi; the cohortatives here are the apodosis perfecti hypotheticit. “ Suppose that this has happened,” is oftener expressed by the perf. (Ps. lvii. 7; Prov. xxii. 29, xxv. 16); “suppose that this happens,” by the fut. (Job xx. 24; Ewald, ὃ 3572), O75 are the interiora domus; the root word Ahdddr, as the Arab. khadar shows, signifies to draw oneself back, to hide; the Ahéder of the tent is the back part, shut off by ἃ curtain from the front space. Those who are singing are not at present in this innermost chamber. But if the king brings one of them in (834), from Nja, introire, with ace. loct), then—they all say—we will rejoice and be glad in thee. The cohortatives are better translated by the fut. than by the conjunctive (exultemus); they express as frequently not what they then desire to do, but what they then are about to do, from inward impulse, with heart delight. The sequence of ideas, “exult” and “ rejoice,” is not a climax descendens, but, as Ps. exviii. 24, etc., an advance from the external to the internal,—from jubilation which can be feigned, to joy of heart which gives it truth; for nov —according to its root signification: to be smoothed, unwrinkled, to be glad’—means to be of a joyful, bright, complaisant disposition; and 93, cogn. nm, to turn (wind) oneself, to revolve, means conduct betokening delight. The prep. 3 in verbs of rejoicing, denotes the object on account of which, and in which, one has joy. Then, if admitted into the closest neighbourhood of the king, they will praise his love more than wine. 12! denotes to fix, viz. in the memory; Hiph.: to bring to remembrance, frequently in the way of praise, and thus directly equivalent to celebrare, eg. Ps. xlv. 18. The wine represents the gifts of the king, in contradistinction to his person. That in inward love he gives himself to them, excels in their esteem all else he gives. For, as the closing line expresses, “ uprightly they love thee,’—viz. they love thee, 1.6. from a right heart, which seeks nothing besides, and nothing with thee; and a right mind, which is pleased with thee, and with nothing but thee. Heiligstedt, Zockler, and others translate: with right they love thee. But the pluralet. 1 Vid. Friedr. Delitzsch’s Indo-german.-sem. Studien (1873), p. 99 ἢ, pvp (from WD, for which the sing. "i#*D occurs) is an ethical conception (Prov. i. 3), and signifies, not: the right of the motive, but: the rightness of the word, thought, and act (Prov. xxiii. 16; Ps. xvii. 2, lviii. 2); thus, not: jure; but: recte, sincere, candide. Hengst., Thrupp, and others, falsely render this word like the LXX., Aquil, Symm., Theod., Targ., Jerome, Venet., and Luther, as subject: rectitudes fabstr. for concr.] = those who have rectitude, the upright. Hengstenberg’s assertion, that the word never occurs as an adv., is set aside by a glance at Ps. lviii. 2, xxv. 3; and, on the other hand, there is no passage in which it is used as abstr. pro coner. It is here, as elsewhere, an adv. acc. for which the word O"%D3 might also be used.

The second pentastich closes similarly with the first, which ended with “love thee.” What is there said of this king, that the virgins love him, is here more generalized; for diligunt te is equivalent to diligeris (cf. viii. 1, 7). With these words the tablesong ends. It is erotic, and yet so chaste and delicate,—it is sensuous, and yet 80 ethical, that here, on the threshold, we are at once surrounded as by a mystical cloudy brightness. But how is it to be explained that Solomon, who says (Prov. xxvii. 2), “ Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth,” begins this his Song of Songs with a song in praise of himself? It is explained from this, that here he celebrates an incident belonging to the happy beginning of his reign; and for him so far fallen into the past, although not to be forgotten, that what he was and what he now is are almost as two separate persons.

After this choral song, Shulamith, who has listened to the singers not without being examined by their inquisitive glances as a strange guest not of equal rank with them, now speaks:

As the tents of Kedar, as the hangings of Solomon. From this, that she addresses the ladies of the palace as “ daughters of Jerusalem” (Kert DU, a du. fractus; like TY for Hy, 2 Chron. xiii. 19), it is to be concluded that she, although now in Jerusalem, came from a different place. She is, as will afterwards appear, from Lower Galilee;—and it may be remarked, in the interest of the mystical interpretation, that the church, and particularly her first congregations, according to the prophecy (Isa. viii. 23), was also Galilean, for Nazareth and Capernaum are their original seats;—and if Shulamith is a poetico-mystical Mashal or emblem, then she represents the synagogue one day to enter into the fellowship of Solomon —i.e. of the son of David, and the daughters of Jerusalem, i+. the congregation already believing on the Messiah. Yet we confine ourselves to the nearest sense, in which Solomon relates a self-experience. Shulamith, the lightly esteemed, cannot boast that she is so ruddy and fair of countenance as they who have just sung how pleasant it is to be beloved by this king; but yet she is not so devoid of beauty as not to venture to love and hope to be loved: “Black am I, yet comely.” These words express humility without abjectness. She calls herself “black,” although she is not so dark and unchangeably black as an “ Ethiopian” (Jer. xiii. 23). The verb "NY has the general primary idea of growing dark, and signifies not necessarily soot-blackness (modern Arab. shwhwar, soot), but blackness more or less deep, as MY, the name of the morning twilight, or rather the morning grey, shows; for (Arab.) sahar’ denotes the latter, as distinguished from (Arab.) fajr, the morning twilight (vid. under Isa. xiv. 12, xlvii. 11). She speaks of herself as a Beduin who appears to herself as (Arab.) sawda, black, and calls? the inhabitants of the town (Arab.) hawaryyat (cute candidas). The Vav we have translated “yet” (“yet comely”); it connects the opposite, which exists along with the blackness. ΠΝ is the fem. of the adj. 18) = ΠΝ) = ἽΝ), which is also formed by means of the doubling of the third stemletter of 78) = 18), ΝΣ) (to bend forward, to aim; to be corresponding to the aim, conformable, becoming, beautiful), eg. like 1289, to be full of sap, green. Both comparisons run parallel to nigra et bella; she compares on the one hand the tents of Kedar, and on the other the tapestry of Solomon. 2X signifies originally, in general, the dwellingplace, as ΓΞ the place where one spends the night; these two words interchange: ohel is the house of the nomad, and bath is the tent of him who is settled. 11? (with the TZsere, probably from (Arab.) kadar, to have ability, be powerful, thought of after the Heb. manner, as Theodoret explains and Symm. also translates: σκοτασμός, from (Heb.) Kadar, atrwm esse) is the name of a tribe of North. Arab. Ishmaelites (Gen. xxv. 13) whom Pliny speaks of (Cedraet in his Hist. Nat. v. 11), but which disappeared at the era of the rise of Islam; the Karaite Jefeth uses for it the word (Arab.) Karysh, for he substitutes the powerful Arab tribe from which Muhammed sprung, and rightly remarks: “She compares the colour of her skin to the blackness of the hair tents of the Koreishites,”’—

1 After an improbable etymology of the Arab., from sahar, to turn, to depart, “the departure of the night” (Lane). Magic appears also to be called sihar, as nigromantia (Mediaev. from nekromantia), the black art.

3 The houri (damsel of paradise) is thus called hawaryyt, adj. relat. from hawra, from the black pupil of the eye in the centre of the white eyeball.

even to the present day the Beduin calls his tent his “ hair-house” (bét wabar, or, according to a more modern expression, bét sa‘r, ἽΝ᾽ M3); for the tents are covered with cloth made of the hair of goats, which are there mostly black-coloured or grey. On the one hand, darkcoloured as the tents of the Kedarenes, she may yet, on the other hand, compare herself to the beautiful appearance of the Miy™ of Solomon. By this word we will have to think of a pleasure-tent or pavilion for the king; pavillon (softened from Lat. papilio) is a pleasure-tent spread out like the flying butterfly. This Heb. word could certainly also mean curtains for separating a chamber; but in the tabernacle and the temple the curtains separating the Most Holy from the Holy Place were not so designated, but are called M355 and 40D; and as with the tabernacle, so always elsewhere, MY" (from YN, to tremble, to move hither and thither) is the name of the cloths or tapestry which formed the sides of the tent (Isa. liv. 2); of the tent coverings, which were named in parall. with the tents themselves as the clothing of their framework (Hab. iii. 7; Jer. iv. 20, x. 20, xlix. 29). Such tent hangings will thus also be here meant; precious, as those described Ex. xxvi. and xxxvi., and as those which formed the tabernacle on Zion (2 Sam. vii.; cf. 1 Chron. xvii. 1) before the erection of the temple. Those made in Egypt’ were particularly prized in ancient times.

Shulamith now explains, to those who were looking upon her with inquisitive wonder, how it is that she is swarthy:

Ver. 6a Look not on me because I am black, Because the sun has scorched me. If the words were 3 (7217) NUTR, then the meaning would be: look not at me, stare not at me. But TON, with w (elsewhere 3) following, means: Regard me not that I am blackish (subnigra); the second & is to be interpreted as co-ordin. with the first (that... that), or assigning a reason, and that objectively (for). We prefer, with Bottch., the former, because in the latter case we would have had ὑπο. The quingueliterum MIMNW signifies, in contradistinction to in’, that which is black here and there, and thus not altogether black. This form, as descriptive of colour, is diminutive; but since it also means id quod passim est, if the accent lies on passim, as distinguished from raro, it can be also taken as increasing instead of diminishing, as in 75°5’, J5259. The LXX. trans. παρέβλεψέ (Symm. παρανέβλεψέ) με ὁ ἥλιος: the sun has looked askance on me. But why only askance? The Venet. better: κατεῖδέ με; but that is too little. The look is thought of as scorching; wherefore 1 Vid, Wetzstein’s Isaiah (1869), p. 698.

Aquila: συνέκαυσέ με, it has burnt me; and Theodotion: περιέφρυξέ με, it has scorched me over and over. *!¥ signifies here not adspicere (Job i. 9, ΧΙ, 10) so much as adurere. In this word itself (cogn. AW; Arab. sadaf, whence asda, black; cf. 7 and yy, Job xvii. 1), the looking is thought of as a scorching; for the rays of the eye, when they fix upon anything, gather themselves, as it were, into a focus. Besides, as the Scriptures ascribe twinkling to the morning dawn, so it ascribes eyes to the sun (2 Sam. xii. 11), which is itself as the eye of the heavens." The poet delicately represents Shulamith as regarding the sun as fem. Its name in Arab. and old Germ, is fem., in Heb. and Aram. for the most part mas. My lady the sun, she, as it were, says, has produced on her this swarthiness. She now says how it has happened that she is thus sunburnt: 65 My mother’s sons were angry with me, Appointed me as keeper of the vineyards— Mine own vineyard have I not kept.

If “ mother’s sons” is the parallel for “ brothers” (M8), then the expressions are of the same import, 6.9. Gen. xxvil. 29; but if the two expressions stand in apposition, as Deut. xiii. 7, then the idea of the natural brother is sharpened; but when “ mother’s sons” stands thus by itself alone, then, after Lev. xviii. 9, it means the relationship by one of the parents alone, as “ father’s wife” in the language of the O. T. and also 1 Cor. v. 5 is the designation of a step-mother. Nowhere is mention made of Shulamith’s father, but always, as here, only of her mother, iii. 4, vii. 2, vi. 9; and she is only named without being introduced as speaking. One is led to suppose that Shulamith’s own father was dead, and that her mother had been married again; the sons by the second marriage were they who ruled in the house of their mother. These brothers of Shulamith appear towards the end of the melodrama as rigorous guardians of their youthful sister; one will thus have to suppose that their zeal for the spotless honour of their sister and the family proceeded from an endeavour to accustom the fickle or dreaming child to useful activity, but not without step-brotherly harshness. The form ὙΠ), Ewald, ὃ 1980, and Olsh. p. 593, derive from 1}, the Niph. of which is either 992 or 19) (= 1772), Gesen. ὃ 68, An. 5; but the plur. of this 9M) should, according to rule, have been 17 (cf. however, sn2, profanantur, Ezek. vii. 24); and what is more decisive, this 1m) from ὙΠ everywhere else expresses a different passion from that of anger; Béttch. § 1060 (2,379). if is used of the burning of anger; and that 909) (from 772 = ΠΤ) can be another form for ὙἼΠ),, is shown, eg., by the interchange of M8 and HNN; the form nN, like 2n3, Amos vi. 6, resisted the bringing together of the n and the half guttural ἡ. Neherd (here as Isa. xli. 11, xlv. 24) means, according to the original, mid. signif. of the Viph., to burn inwardly, ἀναφλέγεσθαι = ὀργίζεσθαι. Shulamith’s address consists intentionally of clauses with perfects placed together: she speaks with childlike artlessness, and not “like a book;” in the language of a book, “poe would have been used instead of Ὁ, But that she uses 7) (from am, R.w = τηρεῖν; ef. Targ. Gen. xxxvii. 11 with Luke ii. 51), and not 779), as they were wont to say in Judea, after Prov. xxvii. 18, and after the designation of the tower for the protection of the flocks by the name of “the tower of the ndtsrim” [the watchmen], 2 Kings xvii. 9, shows that the maid is a Galilean, whose manner of speech is Aramaizing, and if we may so say, platt-Heb. (= Low Heb.), like the Lower Saxon plattdeutsch. Of the three forms of the particip. 73, Md”, mvi2, we here read the middle one, used subst. (Ewald, § 188d), but retaining the long ὃ (ground-form, ndfir). The plur. ‘27°N¥ does not necessarily imply that she had several vineyards to keep, it is the categ. plur. with the art. designating the genus; custodiens vineas is ἃ keeper of a vineyard. But what kind of vineyard, or better, vinegarden, is that which she calls ‘Sv MDD, ie, meam ipsius vineam? The personal possession is doubly expressed; shélli is related to cdrmi as a nearer defining apposition: my vineyard, that which belongs to me (vid. Fr. Philippi’s Status constr. pp. 112-116). Without doubt the figure refers to herself given in charge to be cared for by herself: vine-gardens she had kept, but her own vine-garden, 1.5. her own person, she had not kept. Does she indicate thereby that, in connection with Solomon, she has lost herself, with all that she is and has? Thus in 1851 I thought; but she certainly seeks to explain why she is so sunburnt. She intends in this figurative way to say, that as the keeper of a vineyard she neither could keep nor sought to keep her own person. In this connection cdrmi, which by no means = the colourless memet ipsam, is to be taken as the figure of the person in its external appearance, and that of its fresh-blooming attractive appearance which directly accords with 572, since from the stem-word 072 (Arab.), karwma, the idea of that which is noble and distinguished is connected with this designation of the planting of vines (for 092, (Arab.) harm, οἵ. karmat, of a single vine- stock, denotes not so much the soil in which the vines are planted, as rather the vines themselves): her kérém is her (Arab.) karamat, ae. her stately attractive appearance. If we must interpret this mystically then, supposing that Shulamith is the congregation of Israel moved at some future time with love to Christ, then by the step-brothers we think of the teachers, who after the death of the fathers threw around the congregation the fetters of their human ordinances, and converted fidelity to the law into a system of hireling service, in which all its beauty disappeared. Among the allegorists, Hengstenberg here presents the extreme of an interpretation opposed to what is true and fine.

These words (vers. 5-6) are addressed to the ladies of the palace, who look upon her with wonder. That which now follows is addressed to her beloved:

Ver. 7 O tell me, thou whom my soul loveth: where feedest thou? Where causest thou it (thy flock) to lie down at noon?

For why should I appear as one veiled Among the flocks of thy companions!

The country damsel has no idea of the occupation of a king. Her simplicity goes not beyond the calling of a shepherd as of the fairest and the highest. She thinks of the shepherd of the people as the shepherd of sheep. Moreover, Scripture also describes governing as a tending of sheep; and the Messiah, of whom Solomon is a type, is specially represented as the future Good Shepherd. If now we had to conceive of Solomon as present from the beginning of the scene, then here in ver. 7 would Shulamith say that she would gladly be alone with him, far away from so many who are looking on her with open eyes; and, indeed, in some country place where alone she feels at home. The entreaty “ O tell me” appears certainly to require (cf. Gen. xxxvii. 19) the presence of one to whom she addresses herself. But, on the other hand, the entreaty only asks that he should let her know where he is; she longs to know where his occupation detains him, that she may go out and seek him. Her request is thus directed toward the absent one, as is proved by ver. 8. The vocat., “O thou whom my soul loveth,” is connected with ΠΣ, which lies hid in ΠῚ Π (“inform thou”). It is a circumlocution for “beloved” (cf. Neh. xiii. 26), or “the dearly beloved of my soul” (cf. Jer. xii. 7). The entreating request, indica quaeso mihi ubi pascis, reminds one of Gen. xxxvii. 16, where, however, wi is expressed by 58, while here by "38, which in this sense is dz. Aey. For whi = MBN, 18 otherwise denoted only by MN (i3's), 2 Kings vi. 13, and usually mS, North Palest., by Hosea 18. This 13'S elsewhere means qud- modo, and is the key-word of the Kina, as ΤῊ is of the Mashal (the satire); the Song uses for it, in common with the Book of Esther, "278. In themselves * and 72, which with ‘* preceding, are stamped as interrog. ina sense analogous to hic, ecce, κεῖνος, and the like; the local, temporal, polite sense rests only on a conventional usus /og., Bottch. ὃ 530. She wishes to know where he feeds, viz. his flock, where he causes it (viz. his flock) to lie down at mid-day. The verb yz) (R. 39, with the root signif. of condensation) is the proper word for the lying down of a four-footed animal: complicatis pedibus procumbere (cubare); Hiph. of the shepherd, who causes the flock to lie down; the Arab. rab’a is the name for the encampment of shepherds. The time for encamping is the mid-day, which as the time of the double-light, ie. the most intense light in its ascending and descending, is called OYYT¥. node’, occurring only here, signifies nam cur, but is according to the sense = μέ ne, like πρὸ 1, Dan. i. 10 (cf Ezra vii 23); ποῦ, without Dag. forte euphon., is, with the single exception of Job vii. 20, always milra, while with the Dag. it is milel, and as a rule, only when the following word begins with yn"x carries forward the tone to the will. Shulamith wishes to know the place where her beloved feeds and rests his flock, that she might not wander about among the flocks of his companions seeking and asking for him. But wit does “oY? mean? It is at all events the part. act. fem. of SP which is here treated after the manner of the strong verb, the kindred form to the equally possible ©) (from ‘dtaja) and MOY. As for the meaning, instar errabundae (Syr., Symm., Jerome, Venet., Luther) recommends itself; but nop must then, unless we wish directly to adopt the reading M62 (Béttch.), have been transposed from nyo (myn), which must have been assumed if πον, in the usual sense of velare (cf. 9¥), did not afford an appropriate ignificati

Indeed, velans, viz. sese, cannot denote one whom consciousness veils, one who is weak or fainting (Gesen. Zez.), for the part. act. expresses action, not passivity. But it can denote one who covers herself (the LXX., perhaps, in this sense ὡς περιβαλλομένη), because she mourns (Rashi); or after Gen. xxxviii. 14 (cf. Martial, ix. 32) one who mufiles herself up, because by such affected apparent modesty she wishes to make herself known as a Hierodoule or harlot. The former of these significations is not appropriate; for to appear as mourning does not offend the sense of honour in a virtuous maiden, but to create the appearance of an immodest woman is to her intolerable; and if she bears in herself the image of an only beloved, she shrinks in horror from such a base appearance, not only as a debasing of herself, but also as a desecration of this sanctuary in her heart.

Shulamith calls entreatingly upon him whom her soul loveth to tell her how she might be able directly to reach him, without feeling herself wounded in the consciousness of her maidenhood and of the exclusiveness of herlove. It is thereby supposed that the companions of her only beloved among the shepherds might not treat that which to her is holy with a holy reserve,—a thought to which Hattendorff has given delicate expression in his exposition of the Song, 1867. If Solomon were present, it would be difficult to understand this entreating call. But he is not present, as is manifest from this, that she is not answered by him, but by the daughters of Jerusalem. Ver. 8 If thou knowest not, thou fairest of women, Go after the footprints of the flock, And feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

ΠΡ, standing in the address or call,is in the voc.; the art. was indispensable, because “ the beautiful one among women” = the one distinguished for beauty among them, and thus is, according to the meaning, superlative; cf. Judg. vi. 15, Amos ii. 16, with Judg. v. 24; Luke i. 28; Ewald, ὃ 313c. The verb ΠΡ" refers to the fundariental idea: integrum, completum esse, for beauty consists in well-proportioned fulness and harmony of the members. That the ladies of the court are excited to speak thus may arise from this, that one often judges altogether otherwise of a man, whom one has found not beautiful, as soon as he begins to speak, and his countenance becomes intellectually animated. And did not, in Shulamith’s countenance, the strange external swarthiness borrow a brightness from the inner light which irradiated her features, as she gave so deep and pure an expression to her longing? But the instruction which her childlike, almost childish, naivete deserved, the daughters of Jerusalem do not feel disposed to give her. yt’ 85 signifies, often without the obj. supplied, non sapere, e.g. Ps. lxxxii. 5; Job viii. 9. The τὸ subjoined guards against this inclusive sense, in which the phrase here would be offensive. This dat. ethicus (vid. ii. 10, 11, 13, 17, iv. 6, viii 14), used twice here in ver. 8 and generally in the Song, reflects that which is said on the will of the subject, and thereby gives to it an agreeable cordial turn, here one bearing the colour of ἃ gentle reproof: if thou knowest not to thee—ze. if thou, in thy simplicity and retirement, knowest it not, viz. that he whom thou thinkest thou must seek for at a distance is near to thee, and that Solomon has to tend not sheep but people,—now, then, so go forth, viz. from the royal city, and remain, although chosen to royal honours, as a shepherdess beside thine own sheep and kids. One misapprehends the answer if he supposes that they in reality point out the way to Shulamith by which she might reach her object; on the contrary, they answer her ironically, and, entering into her confusion of mind, tell her that if she cannot apprehend the position of Solomon, she may just remain what she is. 3? (Arab. ‘akib), from 2PY, to be convex, arched, is the heel; to go in the heels (the reading fluctuates between the form, with end withbad Dag. dirimens in ἢ) of one = to press hard after him, to follow him immediately. That they assign to her not goats or kids of goats, but kids, Ma, is an involuntary fine delicate thought with which the appearance of the elegant, beautiful shepherdess inspires them. But that they name kids, not sheep, may arise from this, that the kid is a near-lying erotic emblem; cf. Gen. xxxviii. 17, where it has been fittingly remarked that the young he-goat was the proper courtesan-offering in the worship of Aphrodite (Movers’ Phdnizier, 1. 680). It is as if they said: If thou canst not distinguish between a king and shepherds, then indulge thy love-thoughts beside the shepherds’ tents—remain a country maiden if thou understandest not how to value the fortune whic i has placed thee in Jerusalem in the royal palace.

Solomon, while he was absent during the first scene, is now present. It is generally acknowledged that the words which follow were spoken by him:

Ver. 9 To a horse in the chariot of Pharaoh Do I compare thee, my love. 10 Beautiful are thy cheeks in the chains, Thy neck in the necklaces. 11 Golden chains will we make for thee, With points of silver.

Till now, Shulamith was alone with the ladies of the palace in the banqueting-chamber. Solomon now comes from the banquet-hall of the men (ver. 12); and to ii 7, to which this scene extends, we have to think of the women of the palace as still present, although not hearing what Solomon says to Shulamith. He addresses her, “my love:” she is not yet his bride. 39 (female friend), from ‘VY (739), to guard, care for, tend, ethically: to delight in something particularly, to take pleasure in intercourse with one, is formed in the same way as ΠΡ); the mas. is ΠῚ (= raj), abbreviated 37, whence the fem. ra’yah (Judg. xi. 37; Chethtb), as well as rah, also with reference to the ground-form. At once, in the first words used by Solomon, one recognises @ Philip, ze, a man fond of horses,—an important feature in the character of the sage (vid. Sur. 38 of the Koran),—and that, one fond of Egyptian Spat Solomon carried on an extensive importation of horses from Egypt and other countries (2 Chron. ix. 28); he possessed 1400 war-chariots and 12,000 horsemen (1 Kings x. 26); the number of stalls of horses for his chariots was still greater (1 Kings v. 6) [iv. 26]. Horace (Ode ii. 11) compares a young sprightly maiden to a nimble and timid equa trima; Anacreon (60) addresses such an one: “thou Thracian filly;” and Theocritus says (Idyl xviii. 30, 31):

** As towers the cypress mid the garden’s bloom, As in the chariot proud Thessalian steed, Thus graceful rose-complexioned Helen moves.”

But how it could occur to the author of the Song to begin the praise of the beauty of a shepherdess by saying that she is like a horse in Pharaoh's chariot, is explained only by the supposition that the poet is Solomon, who, as a keen hippologue, had an open eye for the beauty of the horse. Egyptian horses were then esteemed as afterwards the Arabian were. Moreover, the horse was not native to Egypt, but was probably first imported thither by the Hyksos: the Egyptian name of the horse, and particularly of the mare, ses-t, sesmut, and of the chariot, markabuta, are Semitic.’ D%D is here not equitatus (Jerome), as Hengst. maintains: “ Susah does not denote a horse, but is used collectively;” while he adds, “ Shulamith is compared to the whole Egyptian cavalry, and is therefore an ideal person.” The former statement is untrue, and the latter is absurd. Siis means equus, and διδῶ may, indeed, collectively denote the stud (cf. Josh. xix. 5 with 1 Chron. iv. 31), but obviously it first denotes the equa. But is it to be rendered, with the LXX. and the Venet., “to my horse”? Certainly not; for the chariots of Pharaoh are just the chariots of Egypt, not of the king of Israel. The Chirek in which this word terminates is the Ch. compag., which also frequently occurs where, as here and Gen. xlix. 11, the second member of the word-chain is furnished with a prep. (vid. under Ps. exiii.). This ὁ is an old genitival ending, which, as such, has disappeared from the language; it is almost always accented as the suff. Thus also here, where the Metheg shows that the accent rests on the ult. The plur. ‘331, occurring only here, is the amplificative poetic, and denotes state equipage. 87 is the trans. of 13, which combines the meanings aeqguum and aequalem esse. Although not allegorizing, yet, that we may not overlook the judiciousness of the comparison, we must remark that Shulamith is certainly a“ daughter of Israel;” a daughter of the people who increased in Egypt, and, set free from the bondage of Pharaoh, became the bride of Jahve, and were brought by the law as a covenant into a marriage relation to Him.

The transition to ver. 10 is mediated by the effect of the comparison; for the head-frame of the horse’s bridle, and the poitral, were then certainly, just as now, adorned with silken tassels, fringes, and other ornaments of silver (vid. Lane’s Modern Egypt, I. 149). Jerome, absurdly, after the LXX.: pulchrae sunt genae tuae sicut turturis. The name of the turtle, \h, redupl. ¢urtur, isa pure onomatopoeia, which has nothing to do with “3p, whence 14, to go round about, or to move in a circle; and turtle-dove’s cheeks — what absurdity! Birds have no cheeks; and on the sides of its neck the turtle-dove has black and white variegated feathers, which also furnishes no comparison for the colour of the cheeks. OA are the round ornaments which hang down in front on both sides of the head-band, or are also inwoven in the braids of hair in the forehead; “an, circumire, signifies also to form a circle or a row; in Aram. it thus denotes, ¢g., the hem of a garment and the border round the eye. In 08) (vid. at 5a) the Aleph is silent, as in 7Ox>, 53%, ΟἿΣ are strings of pearls as a necklace; for the necklace (Arab. kharaz) consists of one or more, for the most part, of three rows of pearls. The verb MN signifies, to bore through and to string together; eg. in the Talm., fish which one strings on a rod or line, in order to bring them to the market. In Heb. and Aram. the secondary sense of stringing predominates, so that to string pearls is expressed by mn, and to bore through pearls, by mp; in Arab., the primary meaning of piercing through, eg. michraz, a shoemaker’s awl

After ver. 11, one has to represent to himself Shulamith’s adorning as very simple and modest; for Solomon seeks to make her glad with the thought of a continued residence at the royal court by the promise of costly and elegant ornaments. Gold and silver were so closely connected in ancient modes of representation, that in the old Aegypt. silver was called nub het, or white gold. Gold derived its name of 37 from its splendour, after the witty Arab. word zahab, to go away, as an unstable possession; silver is called 403, from 403, scindere, abscindere, a piece of metal as broken off from the motherstone, like the Arab. dhukrat, as set free from the lump by means of the pickaxe (cf. at Ps. xix. 11, lxxxiv. 3). The name of silver has here, not without the influence of the rhythm (ef. viii. 9), the article designating the species; the Song frequently uses this, and is generally in using the art. not so sparing as poetry commonly is.’ DY makes prominent the points of silver as something particular, but not separate. In ΠΟ), Solomon includes himself among the other inhabitants, especially the women of the palace; for the plur. mayest. in the words of God of Himself (frequently in the Koran), or persons of rank of themselves (general in the vulgar Arab.), is unknown in the O. T. They would make for her golden globules or knobs with (16. provided with...; cf. Ps. lxxxix. 14) points of silver sprinkled over them,—which was a powerful enticement for a plain country damsel.

Now for the first time Shulamith addresses Solomon, who is before her. It might be expected that the first word will either express the joy that she now sees him face to face, or the longing which she had hitherto cherished to see him again. ‘The verse following accords with this expectation:

Ver. 12 While the king is at his table, My nard has yielded its fragrance. Vor W W, with fut. foll., usually means: usgue 60, until this and that shall happen, ii. 7, 17; with the perf. foll., until something happened, iii. 4. The idea connected with “until” may, however, be so interpreted that there comes into view not the end of the period as such, but the whole length of the period. So here in the subst. clause following, which in itself is already an expression of continuance, donec = dum (erat); so also sy alone, without asher, with the part. foll. (Jobi. 18), and the infin. (Judg. ii. 26; Ex. xxxili. 22; Jonah iv. 2; cf. 2 Kings ix, 22); seldomer with the

1 The art. denoting the idea of species in the second member of the st. const. standing in the sing. without a determining reference to the first, occurs in i. 13, “a bundle of (von) myrrh;” i. 14, ‘Sa cluster of (von) the cyprus-flower;” iv. 3, “8 thread of (von) scarlet,” ‘‘a piece of pomegranate;” συ. 13, ‘‘a bed of balm” (but otherwise, vi. 2); vii. 9, ‘‘ clusters of the vine;” vii. 3, “δ bowl of roundness ” (which has this property); vii. 10, ‘‘ wine (of the quality) of goodness;” cf. viii. 2, ‘‘ wine the (= of the) spicing.” It also, in cases where the defined species to which the first undefined member of the st. const. belongs, stands in the pl.: ii. 9, 17, viii. 14, ‘‘like a young one of the hinds;” iv. 1, vi. 5, “a herd of goats;” iv. 2, ‘‘a flock of shorn sheep;” vi. 6, ‘‘a flock of lambs,” 1.6. consisting of individuals of this kind. Also, when the second member states the place where a thing originates or is found, the first often remains indeterminate, as one of that which is there found, ora part of that which comes from thence: ii. 1, ‘‘a meadowsaffron of Sharon,” “ἃ lily of the valleys;” iii. 9, ‘‘the wood of Lebanon.” The following are doubtful: iv. 4, ‘‘a thousand bucklers;” and vii. 5, ‘‘a tower of ivory;” less so vii. 1, ‘‘the dance of Mahanaim.” ‘The following are examples of a different kind: Gen. xvi. 7, ‘‘a well of water;” Deut. xxii. 19, “8 damsel of Israel;” Ps. cxiii. 9, ‘‘ a motner of children;” cf. Gen. xxi. 28.

fin. foll., once with the perf. foll. (1 Sam. xiv. 19), once (for Job viii. 21 is easily explained otherwise) with the fat. foll. (Ps. exli. 10, according to which Gen. xlix. 10 also is explained by Baur and others, but without ‘> 1y in this sense of limited duration: “ so long as,” being anywhere proved). 1200 is the inflected 200, which, like the post-bibl. "200, signifies the circuit of the table; for 330 signifies also, after 1 Sam. xvi. 11 (the LXX. rightly, after the sense οὐ μὴ κατακλιθῶμεν), to seat themselves around the table, from which it is to be remarked that not till the Greek-Roman period was the Persian custom of reclining at table introduced, but in earlier times they sat (1'Sam. xx. 5; 1 Kings xiii. 20; ef. Ps. exxviii. 3). Reclining and eating are to be viewed as separate from each other, Amos vi. 4; 305, “three and three they recline at table,” is in matter as in language mishnic (Berachoth 426; cf. Sanhedrin ii. 4, of the king: if he reclines at table, the Téra must be opposite him). Thus: While (usgue eo, so long as), says Shulamith, the king was at his table, my nard gave forth its fragrance.

ΤῸ is an Indian word: nalada, ie, yielding fragrance, Pers. nard (πάτα), Old Arab. nardin (ndrdin), is the aromatic oil of an Indian plant valeriana, called Nardostachys 'Gatdmdnsi (hair-tress nard). Interpreters are wont to represent Shulamith as having a stalk of nard in her hand. Hitzig thinks of the nard with which she who is speaking has besprinkled herself, and he can do this because he regards the speaker as one of the court ladies. But that Shulamith has i herself with nard, is as little to be thought of as that she has in her hand a sprig of nard (spica nardt), or, as the ancients said, an ear of nard; she comes from a region where no nard grows, and nard-oil is for a country maiden unattainable.’ Horace promises Virgil a cadus (= 9 gallons) of the best wine for a small onyx-box full of nard; and Judas estimated at 300 denarii (about £8, 10s.) the genuine nard (how frequently nard was adulterated we learn from Pliny) which Mary of Bethany poured from an alabaster box on the head of Jesus, so that the whole house was filled with the odour of the ointment (Mark xiv. 5; John xii 2). There, in Bethany, the love which is willing to sacrifice all expressed itself in the nard; here, the nard is a figure of the happiness of love, and its fragrance a figure of the longing of love. It is only in the language of flowers that Shulamith makes precious perfume a figure of the love which she bears in the recess of her heart, and which, so

1 The nard plant grows in Northern and Eastern India; the hairy part of the stem immediately above the root yields the perfume. Vid. Lassen'’s Indische Alterthumskunde, 1. 388 f., ΠῚ. 41 f.

long as Solomon was absent, breathed itself out and, as it were, cast forth its fragrance * (cf. ii, 13, vii. 14) in words of longing. She has longed for the king, and has sought to draw him towards her, as she gives him to understand. He is continually in her mind, Ver. 13 A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, Which lieth between my breasts. 14 A bunch of cypress-flowers is my beloved to me, From the vine-gardens of Engedi.

Most interpreters, ignoring the lessons of botany, explain 13a of a little bunch of myrrh; but whence could Shulamith obtain this? Myrrh, Ἢ (128, to move oneself in a horizontal direction hither and thither, or gradually to advance; of a fluid, to flow over the plain ἊΣ belongs, like the frankincense, to the amyrids, which are also exotics * in Palestine; and that which is aromatic in the Balsamodendron myrrha are the leaves and flowers, but the resin (Gummi myrrhae, or merely myrrha) cannot be tied in a bunch. Thus the myrrh here can be understood in no other way than as at v. 5; in general WY, according to Hitzig’s correct remark, properly denotes not what one binds up together, but what one ties up— thus sacculus, a little bag. It is not supposed that she carried such a little bag with her (cf. Isa. iii. 20), or a box of frankincense (Luth. musk-apple); but she compares her beloved to a@ myrrhrepository, which day and night departs not from her bosom, and penetrates her inwardly with its heart-strengthening aroma, So constantly does she think of him, and so delightful is it for her to dare to think of him as her beloved.

The 14th verse presents the same thought. 52 is the cypresscluster or the cypress-flowers, κύπρος (according to Fiirst, from "b= “py, to be whitish, from the colour of the yellow-white flowers), which botanists call Lawsonia, and in the East Alhennd; its leaves yield the orange colour with which the Moslem women stain ‘ their hands and feet. ΤΩΝ (from ou, to interweave) denotes that which is woven, tresses, or ἃ clus.er or garland of their flowers. Here also we

2In Arab. up = 12» to give an odour, has the specific signification, to give an ill odour (mintin, foetidus), which led an Arab. interpreter to understand the expression, '‘my nard has yielded, etc.,” of the stupifying savour which compels Solomon to go away (Mittheilung, Goldziher’s)

8 They came trom Arabia and India; the better Arabian was adulterated with Indian myrrh.

4 Vid. the literature of this subject in Defrémery’s notice of Dozy-Engelmann'’s work in the Revue Critique, III. 2 (1868), p. 408.

have not to suppose that Shulamith carried a bunch of flowers; in her she places herself in the vine-gardens which Solomon had planted on the hill-terraces of Engedi lying on the west of the Dead Sea (Eccles. ii. 4), and chooses a cluster of flowers of the cypress growing in that tropical climate, and says that her beloved is to her internally what such a cluster of cypress-flowers would be to her externally. To be able to call him her beloved is her ornament; and to think of him refreshes her like the most fragrant flowers. In this ardour of loving devotion, she must appear to the king so much the more beautiful. Ver. 15 Lo, thou art fair, my love. Lo, thou art fair; thine eyes are doves. This is a so-called comparatio decwrtata, as we say: feet like the iz. to which the swiftness of the gazelle’s feet belongs (Hab. iii. 19); but instead of “like doves,” for the comparison mounts up to equalization, the expression is directly, “ doves.” If the pupil of the eye were compared with the feathers of the dove (Hitz.), or the sprightliness of the eye with the lively motion hither and thither of the dove (Heiligst.), then the eulogium would stand out of connection with what Shulamith has just said. But it stands in reference to it if her eyes are called doves; and so the likeness to doves’ eyes is attributed to them, because purity and gentleness, longing and simplicity, express themselves therein. The dove is, like the myrtle, rose, and apple, an attribute of the goddess of love, and a figure of that which is truly womanly; wherefore ΠΡ Ὁ) (the Arab. name of a dove), Columbina, and the like names of women, columba and columbari, are words of fondness and caressing. Shulamith gives back to Solomon his eulogium, and rejoices in the prospect of spending her life in fellowship with him. Ver. 16 Behold, thou art comely, my beloved; yea, charming; Yea, our couch is luxuriously green. 17 The beams of our house are cedars, Our wainscot of cypresses. If ver. 16 were not the echo of her heart to Solomon, but if she therewith meant some other one, then the poet should at least not have used 437, but 29. Hitzig remarks, that up to “my beloved” the words appear as those of mutual politeness—that therefore 0°92 (charming) is added at once to distinguish her beloved from the king, who is to her insufferable. But if a man and a woman are together, and he says 727 and she says 737, that is as certainly an interchange of address as that one and one are two and not three.

He praises her beauty; but in her eyes it is rather he who is beautiful, yea charming: she rejoices beforehand in that which is assigned to her. Where else could her conjugal happiness find its home but among her own rural scenes? The city with its noisy display does not please her; and she knows, indeed, that her beloved is a king, but she thinks of him as a shepherd. Therefore she praises the fresh green of their future homestead; cedar tops will form the roof of the house in which they dwell, and cypresses its wainscot. The bed, and particularly the bridal-bower (D. M. Z. xxii. 153),—but not merely the bed in which one sleeps, but also the cushion for rest, the divan (Amos vi. 4),—has the name 2), from ἔπ}, to cover over; cf. the “network of goats’ hair” (1 Sam. xix. 13) and the κωνωπεῖον of Holofernes (Judith x, 21, xii. 9), (whence our kanapee = canopy), a bed covered over for protection against the κώνωπες, the gnats. 222, whence here the fem. adj. accented on the wilt., is not a word of colour, but signifies to be extensible, and to extend far and wide, as lentus in lentz salices; we have no word such as this which combines in itself the ideas of softness and juicy freshness, of bending and elasticity, of looseness, and thus of overhanging ramification (as in the case of the weeping willow). The beams are called nix, from ΠΡ, to meet, to lay crosswise, to hold together (cf. contingere and contignare). ON (after another reading, ‘™, from 0, with Kametz immutable, or a virtual Dag.) is North Palest. = '™ (Kerf), for in place of D'S, troughs (Ex. ii. 16), the Samarit. has nym (cf. sahar and sahhar, circumire, eahar and zahhar, whence the Syr. name of scarlet); here the word, if it is not defect. plur. (Heiligst.), is used as collect. sing. of the hollows or panels of a wainscoted ceiling, like φάτναι, whence the LXX. φατνώματα (Symm. φατνώσεις), and like lacunae, whence lacunaria, for which Jerome has here laguearia, which equally denotes the wainscot ceiling Abulwalid glosses the word rightly by 0°3m», gutters (from 57), to run); only this and οἱ διάδρομοι of the Gr. Venet. is not an architectural expression, like Ὁ ΠῚ, which is still found in the Talm. (vid. Buxtorf’s Lez). To suppose a transposition from 20"7n, from 51, to turn, to carve (Ew. Heiligst. Hitz.), is accordingly not necessary. As the nin O'nN2 belongs to the North Palest. (Galilean) form of speech,’ so also Π for ἢ in this word: an exchange of the gutturals was characteristic of the Galilean idiom (vid. Talm. citations by Frankel, Einl. in d. jerus. Talm.

1 Pliny, H. N. xxiv. 102, ed. Jan., notes brathy as the name of the savin-tres Juniperus sabina. Wetstein is inclined to derive the name of Beirut from 2, as the name of the sweet pine, the tree peculiar to the Syrian landscape, and which,

1870, 78). Well knowing that a mere hut was not suitable for the king, Shulamith’s fancy converts one of the magnificent naturetemples of the North Palest. forest-solitudes into ἃ house where, once together, they will live each for the other. Because it is a large house, although not large by art, she styles it by the poet. plur. bdttenu. The mystical interpretation here finds in Isa. lx. 13 8 favourable support.

What Shulamith now further says confirms what had just been said. City and palace with their splendour please her not; forest and field she delights in; she is a tender flower that has grown up in the quietness of rural life.

to represent herself not as the one, but only as one of this class; the definiteness by means of the article sometimes belongs exclusively to the second number of the genit. word-chain. Ἢ bo may equally (vid. at i. 11, Hitz. on Ps. cxiii. 9, and my Comm. on Gen. ix. 20) mean “an angel” or“ the angel of Jahve;” and ‘tr 'n3 “ a virgin,” or “ the virgin of Israel” (the personification of the people). For hhavatstseleth (perhaps from ἀλένέοξί, a denom. quadril. from betsel, to form bulbs or bulbous knolls) the Syr. Pesh. (Isa. xxxv. 1) uses chamsaljotho, the meadow-saffron, colchicum autumnale; it is the flesh-coloured flower with leafless stem, which, when the grass is mown, decks in thousands the fields of warmer regions. They call it filius ante patrem, because the blossoms appear before the leaves and the seed-capsules, which develope themselves at the close of winter under the ground. Shulamith compares herself to such 8 simple and common flower, and that to one in Sharon, ἐδ. in the region known by that name. Sharon is per aphaer. derived from ner. The most celebrated plain of this name is that situated on the Mediterranean coast between Joppa and Caesarea; but there is also a trans-Jordanic Sharon, 1 Chron. v. 16; and according to Eusebius and Jerome, there is also another district of this name between Tabor and the Lake of Tiberias which is the one here intended, because Shulamith is a Galilean: she calls herself a flower from the neighbourhood of Nazareth. Aquila translates: “A rosebud of Sharon;” but mavit (designedly here the fem. form of the name, which is also growing on the sandy hills, prevents the town from being filled with flying sand. The cypress is now called (Arab.) sanawbar; regarding its old names, and their signification in the figurative language of love, vid. under Isa. xli. 19.

the name of a woman) does not mean the Rose which was brought at a later period from Armenia and Persia, as it appears? and cultjvated in the East (India) and West (Palestine, Egypt, Europe). It is nowhere mentioned in the canonical Scriptures, but is first found in Sir. xxiv, 14, xxxix. 13,18; Wisd. ii. 8; and Esth. i. 6, LXX. Since all the rosaceae are five-leaved, and all the liliaceae are sixleaved, one might suppose, with Aben Ezra, that the name sosan (susan) is connected with the numeral YY, and points to the number of leaves, especially since one is wont to represent to himself the Eastern lilies as red. But they are not only red, or rather violet, but also white: the Moorish-Spanish azucena denotes the white lily. The root-word will thus, however, be the same as that of UY, byssus, and “, white marble. The comparison reminds us of Hos. xiv. 6, “I shall be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily.” ΡΟΣ are deep valleys lying between mountains. She thinks humbly of herself; for before the greatness of the king she appears diminutive, and before the comeliness of the king her own beauty disappears—but he takes up her comparison of herself, and gives it ἃ notable turn. Ver. 2 Asa lily among thorns, So is my love among the daughters.

By O'niN7 are not meant the thorns of the plant itself, for the lily has no thorns, and the thorns of the rose are, moreover, called kotsim, and not hhohhim;* besides, ben (among) contradicts that idea, since the thorns are on the plant itself, and it is not among them— thus the hhohhim are not the thorns of the flower-stem, but the thorn-plants that are around. nin designates the thorn-bush, eg. in the allegorical answer of King Josiah to Amaziah, 2 Kings xiv. 9, Simplicity, innocence, gentleness, are the characteristics in which Shulamith surpasses all ni23, i.e. all women (vid. vi. 9), as the lily of the valley surpasses the thorn-bushes around it. “ Although thorns surround her, yet can he see her; he sees her quiet life, he finds her beautiful.” But continuing this reciprocal rivalry in the praise of mutual love, she says:

3 Vid. Fleischer, Sitzungs-Berichten d. Stchs. Gesell. d. Wissensch. 1868, p. 305, Among the rich flora on the descent of the Hauran range, Wetatein saw (Reisebericht, p. 148) a dark-violet magnificent lily (susan) as largé as his fist. We note here Riickert’s ‘‘ Bright lily! The flowers worship God in the garden: thou art the priest of the house.”

* An Aramaic proverb: ‘from thorns sprouts the rose” (i.e. bad fathers have often pious children), in Heb. is jwari ssw pip; vid. Jalkut Samuel, § 154.

The apple-tree, the name of which, 8A, is formed from MD), and denominates it from its fragrant flower and fruit, is as the king among fruit trees, in Shulamith’s view. “W (from 7%, to be rough, rugged, uneven) is the wilderness and the forest, where are also found trees bearing fruit, which, however, is for the most part sour and unpalatable. But the apple-tree unites delicious fruit along with a grateful shade; and just such a noble tree is the object of her love.

8b Under his shadow it delighted me to sit down;

And his fruit is sweet to my taste.

πα γα Ἔγι eiling Gowns bub ah ts diand aa ἐσ κανστότον down in the shadow of this tree. The Piel 72, occurring only here, expresses the intensity of the wish and longing. The shadow is a figure of protection afforded, and the fruit a figure of enjoyment obtained. The taste is denoted by 3 = 327, from ὌΠ, to chew, or also imbuere; and that which is sweet is called PiN>, from the smacking connected with an agreeable relish The usus log. has neglected this image, true to nature, of physical circumstances in words, especially where, as here, they are transferred to the experience of the soul-life. The taste becomes then a figure of the soul’s power of perception (αἰσθητικόν); a man’s fruit are his words and works, in which his inward nature expresses itself; and this fruit is sweet to those on whom that in which the peculiar nature of the man reveals itself makes a happy, pleasing impression. But not only does the person of the king afford to Shulamith so great delight, he entertains her also with what can and must give her enjoyment. Ver. 4 He has brought me into the wine-house, And his banner over me is love.

After we have seen the ladies of the palace at the feast, in which wine is presented, and after Solomon, till now absent, has entered the banqueting-chamber (Arab. meglis), by ™ ΓΞ we are not to understand the vineyard, which would be called beth haggephanim or beth ha’dndvim, as in Acts i 12, Pesh the Mount of Olives, beth zaite." He has introduced her to the place where he royally entertains his friends. Well knowing that she, the poor and sunburnt ‘ In Heb. ~ does not denote the vineas a plant, as the Aethiop. wain, whence asada wain, wine-court = vineyard, which Ewald compares; Dillmann, however, maiden, does not properly belong to such a place, and would rather escape away from it, he relieves her from her fear and bashfulness, for he covers her with his fear-inspiring, awful, and thus surely protecting, banner; and this banner, which he waves over her, and under which she is well concealed, is “love,” by (from by, to cover) is the name of the covering of the shaft or standard, 1.0. pannus the piece of cloth fastened to a shaft, Like a pennon, the love of the king hovers over her; and so powerful, so surpassing, is the delight of this love which pervades and transports her, that she cries out: Ver. 5 Support me with grape-cakes, Refresh me with apples: For I am sick with love.

She makes use of the intensive form as one in a high degree in need of the reanimating of her almost sinking life: 79D is the intens. of J©0, to prop up, support, or, as here, to under-prop, uphold; and 1B), the intens. of 759 (R. ἢ), to raise up from beneath (vid. at Prov. vil. 16), to furnish firm ground and support. The apple is the Greek attribute of Aphrodite, and is the symbol of love; but here it is only a means of refreshing; and if thoughts of love are connected with the apple-tree (ii. 3, viii. 5), that is explained from Shulamith’s rural home. Bottcher understands quinces; Epstein, citrons; but these must needs have been more closely denoted, as at Prov. xxv. 11, by some addition to the expression. Γ εν (from ΟΝ, to establish, make firm) are (cf, Isa. xvi. 7; Hos. iii 1) grapes pressed together like cakes; different from D'pY, dried grapes (cf. m3), fig-cakes (Arab. dabbiile, a mass pressed together), and πλακοῦς, placenta, from the pressed-out form. A cake is among the gifts (2 Sam. vi 19) which David distributed to the people on the occasion of the bringing up of the ark; date-cakes, eg. at the monastery at Sinai, are to the present day gifts for the refreshment of travellers. If Shulamith’s cry was to be understood literally, one might, with Noack, doubt the correctness of the text; for “lovesickness, even in the ag» of passion and sentimentality, was not to be cured with roses and apples.” But (1) sentimentality, de. susceptibility, does not belong merely to the Romantic, but also to Antiquity, especially in the Orient, as 6.9. 15. shown by the symptoms of sympathy with which the prophets were affected when uttering their threatenings of judgment; let one read such outbreaks of sorrow as Isa. xxi. 3, which, if one is disposed to scorn, may be derided as hysterical fits. Moreover, the Indian, Persian, and Arabic erotic ineptly cites ‘‘ vine-arbour,” and South-Germ. ‘‘ kamerte” = vinea camerata; in Heb. δ) ΓΔ is the house in which wine is drunk.

(vid. eg. the Romance Siret ‘Antar) is as sentimental as the German has at any time been. (2) The subject of the passage here is not the curing of love-sickness, but bodily refreshment: the cry of Shulamith, that she may be made capable of bearing the deep agitation of her physical life, which is the consequence, not of her love-sickness, but of her love-happiness. (3) The cry is not addressed (although this is grammatically possible, since ‘7290 is, according to rule, = ‘Nk 72200) to the daughters of Jerusalem, who would in that case have been named, but to some other person; and this points to its being taken not in a literal sense, (4) It presupposes that one came to the help of Shulamith, sick and reduced to weakness, with grapes and apple-scent to revive her fainting spirit. The call of Shulamith thus means: hasten to me with that which will revive and refresh me, for I am sick with love. This love-sickness has also been experienced in the spiritual sphere. St. Ephrem was once so overcome by such a joy that he cried out: “ Lord, withdraw Thine hand a little, for my heart is too weak to receive so great joy.” And J. R. Hedinger (+ 1704) was on his deathbed overpowered with such a stream of heavenly delight that he cried: “Oh, how good is the Lord! Oh, how sweet is Thy love, my Jesus! Oh, what a sweetness! I am not worthy of it, my Lord! Let me alone; let me alone!” As the spiritual joy of love, so may also the spiritual longing of love consume the body (cf. Job xix. 27; Pa Ilxiii. 2, Ixxxiv. 3); there have been men who have actually sunk under a longing desire after the Lord and eternity. It is the state of loveecstasy in which Shulamith calls for refreshment, beeause she is afraid of sinking. The contrast between her, the poor and unworthy, and the king, who appears to her as an ideal of beauty and majesty, who raises her up to himself, was such as to threaten her life. Unlooked for, extraordinary fortune, has already killed many. Fear, producing lameness and even death, is a phenomenon common in the Orient! If Pharaoh’s daughter, if the Queen of Sheba, finds herself in the presence of Solomon, the feeling of social equality prevents all alarm, But Shulamith is dazzled by the splendour, and disconcerted;

2 Ro'd (ay, thus in Damascus), or ra’} (thus in the Hauran and among the Beduins), is a state of the soul which with us is found only in a lower degree, but which among the Arabians is psychologically notewortby. The wahm, ie.

hours, about 6000 Christian men were put to death in Damascus, without one lifting his hand in defence, or uttering one word of supplication. That the rv’d and it happens to her in type as it happened to the seer of Patmos, who, in presence of the ascended Lord, fell at His feet as one dead, Rev. i. 17. If beauty is combined with dignity, it has always, for gentle and not perverted natures, something that awakens veneration and tremor; but if the power of love be superadded, then it has, as & consequence, that combination of awe and inward delight, the psychological appearance of which Sappho, in the four strophes which begin with “ Φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν ἔμμεν avnp,” has described in a manner so true to nature. We may thus, without carrying back modern sentimentality into antiquity, suppose that Shulamith sank down in a paroxysm caused by the rivalry between the words of love and of praise, and thus thanking him,—for Solomon supports and bears her up,—she exclaims: Ver. 6 His left hand is under my head, And his right hand doth embrace me. With his left hand he supports her head that had fallen backwards, and with his right he embraces her [herzet], as Luther rightly renders it (as he also renders the name Habakkuk by “der Herzer” = the embracer); for P29 signifies properly to enfold, to embrace; but then generally, to embrace lovingly, to fondle, of that gentle stroking with the hand elsewhere denoted by "7, mulcere. The situation here is like that at Gen. xxix. 13, xlviii. 10; where, connected with the dat., it is meant of loving arms stretched out to embrace. If this sympathetic, gentle embracing exercises a soothing influence on her, overcome by the power of her emotions; so love mutually kindled now celebrates the first hour of delighted enjoyment, and the happy Shulamith calls to those who are witnesses of her joy: Ver. 7 I adjure you, ye daughters of Jerusalem, By the gazelles or the hinds of the field, That ye arouse not and disturb not love Till she pleases. It is permitted to the Israelites to swear, ¥2¥3, only by God (Gen. xxi. 23); but to adjure, "205, by that which is not God, is also admissible, although this example before us is perhaps the only

kills in Arabia, European and native physicians have assured me; and I myself can confirm tne fact. Since it frequently produces a stiffening of the limbs, with chronic lameness, every kind of paralysis is called ro‘b, and every paralytic mar‘éb. It is treated medically by applying the ‘ terror-cup’ (dset er-ro'b), covered over with sentences engraved on it, and hung round with twenty bells; and since, among the Arabians, the influence of the psychical on the physical is stronger and more immediate than with us, the sympathetic cure may have there sometimes positive results.’’— Wetstein.

direct one in Scripture. ὩΥ (= ‘3¥, dialect. ‘35), fem. ™3¥ (Aram. N30, Acts ix. 36), plur. tsebaim or tsebajim, fem. tsabadth (according with the pl. of &2¥), softened from tsebajoth, is the name for the gazelle, from the elegance of its form and movements. πάρης is the connecting form of Mx, whose consonantal Yod in the Assyr. and Syr. is softened to the diphthong ailuv, add; the gen. “of the field,” as not distinguishing but describing, belongs to both of the animals, therefore also the first is without the article. {x (after the etymon corresponding to the Lat. vel) proceeds, leaving out of view the repetition of this so-called Slumber-Song (iii. 5; οἵ, vill. 4, as also ii. 9), from the endeavour to give to the adjuration the greatest impression; the expression is varied, for the representations flit from image to image, and the one, wherever possible, is surpassed by the other (wid. at Prov. xxx. 31). Under this verse Hengst. remarks: “The bride would not adjure by the hinds, much more would she adjure by the stags.” He supposes that Solomon is here the speaker; but a more worthless proof for this could not be thought of. On the contrary, the adjuration by the gazelles, etc., shows that the speaker here is one whose home is the field and wood; thus also not the poet (Hitz.) nor the queen-mother (Bottch.), neither of whom is ever introduced as speaking. The adjuration is that love should not be disturbed, and therefore it is by the animals that are most lovely and free, which roam through the fields. Zéckler, with whom in this one point Gritz agrees, finds here, after the example of Béttch. and Hitz, the earnest warning against wantonly exciting love in themselves (cf. Lat. irritamenta veneris, irritata voluptas) till God Himself awakens it, and heart finds itself in sympathy with heart. But the circumstances in which Shulamith is placed ill accord with such a general moralizing. The adjuration is repeated, iii. 5, viii. 4, and wherever Shulamith finds herself near her beloved, as she is here in his arms. What lies nearer, then, than that she should guard against a disturbance of this loveecstasy, which is like a slumber penetrated by delightful dreams? Instead of D2¥, YEH, and 719A, should be more exactly the words ΠΝ, "TWH, and Mr 7yA; but the gram. distinction of the genera is in Heb. not perfectly developed. We meet also with the very same synallage generis, without this adjuration formula, at v. 8, vii. 1, iv. 2, vi. 8, etc.; it is also elsewhere frequent; but in the Song it perhaps belongs to the foil of the vulgar given to the highly poetic. Thus also in the vulgar Arab. the fem. forms jaktulna, taktulna, corresponding to 7276pA, are fallen out of use. With sn, expergefacere, there is connected the idea of an interruption of sleep; with TW, exeitare, the idea, which goes further, of arousing out of sleep placing in the full activity of awakened life! The one adjuration is, that love should not be awakened out of its sweet dream: the other, that it should not be disturbed from its being absorbed in itself. The Pasek between myn and the word following has, as at Lev. x. 6, the design of keeping the two Vavs distinct, that in reading they might not run together; it is the Pasek which, as Ben Asher says, serves “to secure to a letter its independence against the similar one standing next it.” NINN is not abstr. pro concreto, but love itself in its giving and receiving, Thus closes the second scene of the first act: Shulamith lies like one helpless in the arms of Solomon; but in him to expire is her life; to have lost herself in him, and in him to find herself again, is her happiness,

With ii. 8 the second act begins. The so-called slumber-song (ili. 5) closes it, as it did the first act; and also the refrain-like summons to hasten to the mountains leaves no doubt regarding the close of the first scene. The locality is no longer the royal city. Shulamith, with her love-sickness, is once more at home in the house which she inhabits along with her own friends, of whom she has already (i. 6) named her brothers. This house stands alone among the rocks, and deep in the mountain range; around are the vineyards which the family have planted, and the hill-pastures on which they feed their flocks. She longingly looks out here for her distant lover. Ver. 8 Hark, my beloved! lo, there he comes! Springs over the mountains, Bounds over the hills.

1 The distinction between these words is well explained by Lewisohn in his Investigationes Linguae (Wilna, 1840), p. 21: ‘‘The ΠΡ ΤΙΝ ‘y0 is satisfied that the sleeper wakes, and it is left to him fully to overcome the influence of sleep; the ὙΠ", however, arouses him at once from sleepiness, and awakes him to such ἃ degree that he is secured against falling asleep again.”

9 My beloved is like a gazelle, Or a young one of the harta. Lo, there he stands behind our wall! He looks through the windows, Glances through the lattices.

The word ip, in the expression *t 4p, is to be understood of the call of the approaching lover (Béttch.), or only of the sound of his footsteps (Hitz); it is an interjectional clause (sound of my beloved ἢ, in which ἀδὶ becomes an interjection almost the same as our “horch” [“hear!"]. Vid. under Gen. iv. 10. ΠῚ after "4 sharpens it, as the demonst. ce in cece = en ev. ΜΔ is thought of as partic, as is evident from the accenting of the fem. "M3, eg. Jer. x. 22. ὅδ is the usual word for springing; the parallel 78? (78°), Aram. YD?, 1©?, signifies properly confrahere (cogn. TP, whence Kametz, the drawing together of the mouth, more accurately, of the muscles of the lips), particularly to draw the body together, to prepare it for a spring. In the same manner, at the present day, both in the city and in the Beduin Arab. kamaz, for which also famaz, is used of the springing of a gazelle, which consists in a tossing up of the legs stretched out perpendicularly. “Antar says similarly, as Shulamith here of the swift-footed shébib (D. M. Zeitung, xxii. 362): wahu jejmiz gamazdt εἰ-ῥατάϊ!, it leaps away with the springing of a gazelle.

The figure used in ver. 8 is continued in ver. 9. ‘3¥ is the speed of the gazelle, and his eyes seek for the unforgotten one. Spd (from 9n2, compingere, condensare; whence, eg., Arab. mukattal, pressed together, rounded, ramassé; vid. regarding R. ΓΘ at Ps. Ixxxvii. 6), Aram. 582 (Josh. ii. 15; Targ. word for P), is meant of the wall of the house itself, not of the wall surrounding it. Shulamith is within, in the house: her beloved, standing behind the wall, stands without, before the house: ad latus parietis, viz. out from it), and looks through the windows,—at time through this one, at another through that one,—that he might see her and feast his eyes on her. We have here two verbs from the fulness of Heb. synon. for one idea of seeing. 27, from mY, occurring only three times in the O. T., refers, in respect of the roots 3’, Jt’, pe’, to the idea of piercing or splitting (whence also yaw’, to be furious, properly pierced, percitum esse; cf. oestrus, sting of a gadfly = madness, Arab. transferred to hardiness = madness), and means fixing by reflection and meditation; wherefore MMW in post-bibl. Heb. is the name for Divine Providence. $3, elsewhere to twinkle and to bloom, appears only here in the sense of seeing, and that of the quick darting forward of the glance of the eye, as blick [glance] and dlitz [lightning] (bic) are one word; “he saw,” says Goethe in Werther, “the glance of the powder” (Weigand).’ The plurs. fenestrae and transennae are to be understood also as synechdoche totius pro parte, which is the same as the plur. of categ.; but with equal correctness we conceive of him as changing his standing place. fbn is the window, as an opening in the wall, from 22M, perforare, ODM we combine most certainly (vid. Prov. xii. 27) with (Arab.) khark, fisswra, so that the idea presents itself of the window broken through the wall, or as itself broken through; for the window in the country there consists for the most part of a pierced wooden frame of a transparent nature,—not (as one would erroneously conclude, from the most significant name of a window 123”, now schubbake, from 32%, to twist, to lattice, to close after the manner of our Venetian blinds) of rods or boards laid crosswise. ἢ accords with the looking out through the pierced places of such a window, for the glances of his eye are like the penetrating rays of light. When now Shulamith continues: Ver. 10a My beloved answered and said to me, Arise, my love, my fair one, and go forth!

the words show that this first scene is not immediately dramatic, but only mediately; for Shulamith speaks in monologue, though in a dramatic manner narrating an event which occurred between the commencement of their love-relation and her home-bringing.” She does not relate it as a dream, and thus it is not one. Solomon

1 In this sense: to look sharply toward, is pyn (Talm.)—for Gritz alone a proof that the Song is of very recent date; but this word belongs, like 17D, to the old Heb. still preserved in the Talm.

2 Gritz misinterprets this in order by the supplement of similar ones to make the whole poem a chain of narrative which Shulamith declaims to the daughters of Jerusalem. Thereby it certainly ceases to be dramatic, but so much more tedious does it become by these interposed expressions, (1 gaid,” ‘he said,” “ the sons of my mother said.”

at again sees him, and he invites her to enjoy with him the season. may signifies, like ἀποκρίνεσθαι, not always to answer to the words of another, but also to speak on the occasion of ἃ person appearing before one; it is different from rap, the same in sound, which signifies to sing, properly to sing through the nose, and the root-meaning of replying (of the same root as 22, clouds, which meets us when we look up toward the heavens); but taking speech in hand in consequence of an impression received is equivalent to an answer. With ἘΦ he calls upon her to raise herself from her stupor, and with 172A, French va-t-en, to follow him. Ver. 11 For, lo! the winter is past, The rain is over, is gone. 12 The flowers appear in the land; The time of song has come, And the voice of the tartle makes itself heard in ocr land. 13 The fig-tree spices her green figs, And the vines stand in bloom, they diffuse fragrance;— Rise up, my love, my fair one, and go forth! The winter is called ΤΟ, perhaps from a verb "7 (of the same root as ὝΠΟ, 009, without any example, since mo, Gen. xlix. 11, is certainly not derived from a verb mo), to conceal, to veil, as the time of being overcast with clouds, for in the East winter is the rainy season; (Arab.) shatad is also used in the sense of rain itself (vid. D. Mf Zeitsch. xx. 618); and in the present day in Jerusalem, in the language of the people, no other name is used for rain but shatad (not mefar). The word "M0, which the Kert substitutes, only means that one must not read id, but 99 with longa; in the same way rp, humble, from M39, to be bowed down, and t79, a quail, from ΠΩ͂, to be fat, are formed and written. Rain is here, however, especially mentioned: it is called geshem, from gdsham, to be thick, massy (cf. revivim, of density). With 737, to pass by, there is i nbn, which, like (Arab.) khalaf, means properly to press on, and then to move to another place, and thus to remove from the place hitherto occupied. In Ὁ 37, with the dat. ethicus, which throws back the action on the subject, the winter rain is thought of as a person who has passed by. Ὦ, with the noun-ending ἄπ, is the same as 1%, and signifies the flower, as the latter the flower-month, floréal; in the use of the word, ® is related to 12 and ΠΕ, probably as little flower is to flower. In Adzedmir the idea of the song of birds (Arab. gharad) appears, and this is not to be given up. The

LXX., Aquila, Symm., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. translate tempus putationis: the time of the pruning of vines, which indeed corresponds to the usws Jog. (cf. 15!, to prune the vine, and DN, a pruningknife), and to similar names, such as FON [ingathering of fruit], but supplies no reason for her being invited out into the open fields, and is on this account improbable, because the poet further on speaks for the first time of vines. 2? (1%?) is an onomatopoeia, which for the most part denotes song and music; why should Ot thus not be able to denote singing, like?——but not, at least not in this passage, the singing of men (Hengst.), for they are not silent in winter; but the singing of birds, which is truly a sign of the spring, and as a characteristic feature, is added’ to this lovely picture of spring? Thus there is also suitably added the mention of the turtle-dove, which is a bird of passage (vid. Jer. viii. 7), and therefore a messenger of spring. YD) is 3d pret.: it makes itself heard.

The description of spring is finished by a reference to the fig-tree and the vine, the standing attributes of a prosperous and peaceful homestead, 1 Kings v.5; 2 Kings xviii. 31. 28 (from 328, and thus named, not from their hardness, but their delicacy) are the little fruits of the fig-tree which now, when the harvest-rains are over, and the spring commences with the equinox of Nisan, already begin to assume a red colour; the verb 524 does not mean “ to grow into a bulb,” as Bottch. imagines; it has only the two meanings, condire (condiri, post-bibl. syn. of >%3) and rubescere. From its colour, wheat has the name 7M = 730; and here also the idea of colour has the preference, for becoming fragrant does not occur in spring,—in the history of the cursing of the fig-tree at the time of the Passover, Mark (xi. 13) says, “for the time of figs was not yet.” In fig-trees, by this time the green of the fruit-formation changes its colour, and the vines are 7720, blossom, 1.6. are in a state of bloom (LXX. xumpifovea; cf. vu. 13, κυπρισμότ) —ἰῦ is a clause such as Ex. ix. 31, and to which “ they diffuse fragrance” (ver. 13) is parallel. This word 71»p is usually regarded as a compound word, consisting of 0D, scent, and 173, brightness = blossom (vid. Gesen. Thes.); it is undeniable that there are such compound formations, eg. PRO’, from nov and sw; wD, from (Arab.) hams, to be hard, and hals, to be dark-brown.” But the

1 It is true that besides in this passage zdmdr, of the singing of birds, is not demonstrable, the Arab. zamar is only used of the shrill cry of the ostrich, and particularly the female ostrich.

2 In like manner as (Arab.) karbsh, corrugare, is formed of karb, to string, and karsh, to wrinkle, combined; and another extension of karsh is kurnash, wrinkles, and mukarnash, wrinkled. ‘‘ One day,” said Wetstein to me, “" I asked an traditional reading 772° (not 7720) is unfavourable to this view; the middle ἃ accordingly, as in ΡΥ, presents itself as an ante-tone vowel (Ewald, § 1542), and the stem-word appears as a quadril. which may be the expansion of 779, to range, put in order in the sense of placing asunder, unfolding. Symm. renders the word by οἰνάνθη, and the Talm. idiom shows that not only the green five-leaved blossoms of the vine were so named, but also the fruit-buds and the first shoots of the grapes. Here, as the words “they diffuse fragrance” (as at vii 14 of the mandrakes) show, the vine-blossom is meant which fills the vineyard with an incomparably delicate fragrance. At the close of the invitation to enjoy the spring, the call “ Rise up,” ete., with which it began, is repeated. The Chethtb "39, if not an error in writing, justly set aside by the Kerf, is to be read ‘22 (cf. Syr. bechi, in thee, Mvotechi, to thee, but with occult 1)—a North Palestinism for 1, like 2 Kings iv. 2, where the Xert has substituted the usual form (vid, under Ps. ciii. introd.) for this very dialectic form, which is there undoubtedly original. Ver. 14. Solomon further relates how he drew her to himself out of her retirement:

My dove in the clefts of the rock,

In the hiding-place of the cliff;

Let me sce thy countenance,

For thy voice is sweet and thy countenance comely. “Dove” (for which Castellio, columbula, like vulticulum, voculam) is a name of endearment which Shulamith shares with the church of God, Ps. lxxiv. 19; ef. lvi. 1; Hos. vii. 11. The wood-pigeon builds its nest in the clefts of the rocks and other steep rocky places, Jer. xlviii. 28 That Shulamith is thus here named, shows that, far removed from intercourse with the world, her home was among the mountains. "2M, from ὉΠ, or also ὉΠ, requires a verb 737) = (Arab.)

purely Semites in this or that designation. Samdor is also a strange word; on the one side it is connected with sadr, of the veiling of the eyes, as the effect of terror; and on the other with samd, of stretching oneself straight out. E. Meicr takes snp as the name of the vine-blossom, as changed from ἽΠΌ, bristling. Just as unlikely as that ‘IoD is cogn. to THM, Jesurun, p. 221. 1 Wetatein's Reisebericht, p. 182: “If the Syrian wood-pigeon does not find 8 khagja, findere. yo, as a Himyar. lexicographer defines it, is a cleft into the mountains after the nature of a defile; with wy, only the ideas of inaccessibility and remoteness are connected; with yp, those of a secure hiding-place, and, indeed, a convenient, pleasant residence. MTD is the stairs; here the rocky stairs, as the two chalk-cliffs on the Riigen, which sink perpendicularly to the sea, are called « Stubbenkammer,” a corruption of the Slavonic Stupnykamen, 1.6. the Stair- Rock. “Let me see,” said he, as he called upon her with enticing words, “thy countenance;” and adds this as a reason, “for thy countenance is lovely.” The word TN, thus pointed, is sing.; the Jod otians is the third root letter of ἜΝ, retained only for the sake of the eye. It is incorrect to conclude from ashréch, in Eccles, x. 17, that the ech may be also the plur. suff., which it can as little be as ¢éhu in Prov, xxix. 18; in both cases the sing. eshér has substituted itself for ashré. But, inversely, mdraich cannot be Sing.; for the sing. is simply maréch. Also mdrav, Job xli. 1, is not sing: the sing. is maréhu, Job iy. 16; Song v.15. On the other hand, the determination of such forms as WSID, DMN, is difficult: these forms may be sing. as well as plur. In the passage before us, D'S 0 is just such a non-numer. plur. as O28. But while panim is an extensive plur., as Béttcher calls it: the countenance, in its extension and the totality of its parts,—marim, like maroth, vision, a stately term, Ex. xl. 2 (vid. Dietrich’s Abhand. p. 19), is an amplificative plur.: the countenance, on the side of its fulness of beauty and its overpowering impression.

There now follows a cantiuncula. Shulamith comes forward, and, singing, salutes her beloved. Their love shall celebrate a new spring. Thus she wishes everything removed, or rendered harmless, that would disturb the peace of this love:

Ver. 15 Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, The spoilers of the vineyards; For our vineyards are in bloom! 16 My beloved is mine, and I am his; Who feeds [his flock] among the lilies.

If the king is now, on this visit of the beloved, engaged in hunting, the call: “Catch us,” etc., if it is directed at all to any definite persons, is addressed to those who follow him. But this is a vinedresser’s ditty, in accord with Shulamith’s experience as the keeper

Pigeon-tower, xspiorepsavee, it builds its nest in the hollows of rocky precipices, or in the walls of deep and wide fountains.” See also his Nord-arabien, p. 58: “Α number of scarcely accessible mountains in Arabia are called alkunnat, ἃ of a vineyard, which, in a figure, aims at her love-relation. The vineyards, beautiful with fragrant blossom, point to her covenant of love; and the foxes, the little foxes, which might destroy these united vineyards, point to all the great and little enemies and adverse circumstances which threaten to gnaw and destroy love in the blossom, re it has reached the ripeness of full enjoyment. 79% comprehends both foxes and jackals, which “ destroy or injure the vineyards; because, by their holes and passages which they form in the ground, loosening the soil, so that the growth and prosperity of the vine suffers injury” (Hitzig). This word is from 5ye (R. $v), to go down, or into the depth. The little foxes are perhaps the jackals, which are called tanntm, from their extended form, and in height are seldom more than fifteen inches. The word “ jackal " has nothing to do with 59, but is the Persian-Turkish shaghal, which comes from the Sanscr. ergdla, the howler (R. krag, like kap-dla, the skull; R. kap, to be arched). Moreover, the mention of the foxes naturally follows 14a, for they are at home among rocky ravines. Hitzig supposes Shulamith to address the foxes: hold for us = wait, ye rascals! But ἵπῈ͵ Aram. 77%, does not signify to wait, but to seize or lay hold of (synon. 12, Judg. xv. 4), as the lion its prey, Isa. v. 29. And the plur. of address is explained from its being made to the king's retinue, or to all who could and would give help. Fox-hunting is still, and has been from old times, a sport of rich landowners; and are proverbially as destroyers, Neh. iii. 35 [iv. 3], and therefore a figure of the false prophets, Ezek. xiii. 4. ‘p12 "2nd are here instead of ‘0729 927. The articles are generally omitted, because poetry is not fond of the article, where, as here (cf. on the other hand, i. 6), the thoughts and language permit it; and the fivef fm is an intentional mere verborum sonus. The clause T7120 “13 is an explanatory one, as appears from the Vav and the subj. preceding, as well as from the want of a finitum, 722 maintains here also, in pausa, the sharpening of the final syllable, as ἘΠ, Deut. xxviii. 42. The 16th verse is connected with the 15th. Shulamith, in the pentast. song, celebrates her love-relation; for the praise of it extends into ver. 15, is continued in ver. 16, and not till ver. 17 does she address her beloved. Luther translates:

My beloved is mine, and I am his;

He feeds [his flock] among the roses. He has here also changed the “lilies” of the Vulgate into “ roses;” for of the two queens among the flowers, he gave the preference to the popular and common rose; besides, he rightly does not translate AY57, in the mid. after the pascitur inter lilia of the Vulgate: who feeds himself, 72. pleases himself; for myx has this meaning only when the object expressly follows, and it is evident that 9.3 cannot possibly be this object, after Gen. xxxvii. 2,—the object is thus to be supplied. And which? Without doubt, gregem; and if Heiligst., with the advocates of the shepherd-hypothesis, understands this feeding (of the flock) among the lilies, of feeding on a flowery meadow, nothing can be said against it. But at vi. 2 f., where this saying of Shulamith is repeated, she says that her beloved 0%333 feeds and gathers lilies. On this the literal interpretation of the qui pascit (gregem) inter liJia is wrecked; for a shepherd, such as the shepherd-hypothesis supposes, were he to feed his flock in a garden, would be nothing better than a thief; such shepherds, also, do not concern themselves with the plucking of flowers, but spend theix time in knitting stockings. It is Solomon, the king, of whom Shulamith speaks. She represents him to herself as a shepherd; but in such a manner that, at the same time, she describes his actions in language which rises above ordinary shepherd-life, and, so to speak, idealizes. She, who was herself a shepherdess, knows from her own circle of thought nothing more lovely or more honourable to conceive and to say of him, than that he is a shepherd who feeds among lilies. The locality and the surroundings of his daily work correspond to his nature, which is altogether beauty and love. Lilies, the emblem of unapproachable highness, awe-inspiring purity, lofty elevation above what is common, bloom where the lily-like (king) wanders, whom the Lily names her own. The mystic interpretation and mode of speaking takes “lilies” as the figurative name of holy souls, and a lily-stalk as the symbol of the life of regeneration. Mary, who is celebrated in song as the rosa mystica, 15 rightly represented in ancient pictures with a lily in her hand on the occasion of the Annunciation; for if the people of God are called by Jewish poets “a people of lilies,” she is, within this lily-community, this communio sanctorum, the lily without a parallel. Shulamith now further relates, in a dramatic, lively manner, what she said to her beloved after she had saluted him in a song: Ver. 17 Till the day cools and the shadows flee away,

Like a gazelle or a young one of the hinds

On the craggy mountains. With the perf., ¥ Ἵν (cf. OS TY, Gen. xxiv. 33) signifies, till something is done; with the fut., till something will be done. Thus: till the evening comes—and, therefore, before it comes—may he do what she requires of him. Most interpreters explain 2, verte te, with the supplement ad me; according to which Jerome, Castell., and others translate by revertere. But Ps. lxxi. 21 does not warrant this render- away.” Rather we may suppose, as I explained in 1851, that she holds him in her embrace, as she says, and, inseparable from him, will wander with him upon the mountains. But neither that ad me nor this mecum should have been here (cf. on the contrary viii. 14) unexpressed. We hold by what is written. Solomon surprises Shulamith, and invites her to enjoy with him the spring-time; not alone, because he is on a hunting expedition, and—as denoted by “catch us” (ver. 15)—with a retinue of followers. She knows that the king has not now time to wander at Jeisure with her; and therefore she asks him to set forward his work for the day, and to make haste on the mountains till “ the day cools and the shadows flee.” Then she will and the labial Pe, signifies spirare, here of being able to be breathed, ie. cool, like the expression 7 rm, Gen. iii. 8 (where the guttural Hheth longer and longer, as if on a flight, when they stretch out (Ps. cix. 28, cii. 12) and gradually disappear. Till that takes place—or, a8 we say, will be done —he shall hasten with the swiftness of a gazelle on the mountains, and that on the mountains of separation, ce. the riven mountains, which thus present hindrances, but which he, the “ swift as the gazelle” (vid. ii. 9), easily overcomes. Rightly, Bochart: montes scissionis, ita dicti propter, ῥωχμούς εἰ χάσματα. Also, Luther's « Scheideberge” are “ mountains with peaks, from one of which to the other one must spring.” We must not here think of Bithron (2 Sam. ii 29), for that is a mountain ravine on the east of Jordan; nor of Bar-Cochba’s 13 (Kirschbaum, Landau), because this mountain (whether it be sought for to the south of Jerusalem or to the gazelle or of the hind), the name bitru occurs, perhaps the name of the rupicapra. At the close of the song, the expression “ mountain of spices” occurs instead of “mountain of separation,” as here. There no more hindrances to be overcome lie in view, the rock-cliffs have become fragrant flowers. The request here made by Shulamith breathes self-denying humility, patient modesty, inward joy in the joy of her beloved. She will not claim him for herself ἘΠ he has accomplished his work. But when he associates with her in the evening, as with the Emmaus disciples, she will rejoice if he becomes her guide through the new-born world of spring. The whole scene permits, yea, moves us to think of this, that the Lord already even now visits the church which loves Him, and reveals Himself to her; but that not till the evening of the world is His varousia to be expected.

In the first scene, Shulamith relates what externally happened to her one day when the evening approached. In this second scene, she now relates what she inwardly experienced when the night came. She does not indeed say that she dreamed it; but that it is a dream is seen from this, that that which is related cannot be represented as an external reality. But it at once appears as an occurrence that took place during sleep,

I sought him, and found him not. She does not mean to say that she sought him beside herself on her couch; for how could that be of the modest one, whose homebringing is first described in the next act—she could and might miss him there neither waking nor sleeping. The commencement is like Job xxxiii. 15. She was at night on her couch, when a painful longing seized her: the beloved of her soul appeared to have forsaken her, to have withdrawn from her; she had lost the feeling of his nearness, and was not able to recover it. M\-? is neither here nor at iii. 8 necessarily the categ. plur. The meaning may also be, that this pain, arising from a sense of being forgotten, always returned upon her for several nights through: she became distrustful of his fidelity; but the more she apprehended that she was no longer loved, the more ardent became her longing, and she arose to seek for him who had disappeared.

Ver. 2 So I will arise, then, and go about the city, The markets, and the streets; I will seek him whom my soul loveth!— I sought him, and found him not.