How could this night-search, with all the strength of love, be consistent with the modesty of a maiden? It is thus a dream which she relates. And if the beloved of her soul were a shepherd, would she seek him in the city, and not rather without, in the field or in some village? No; the beloved of her soul is Solomon; and in the dream, Jerusalem, his city, is transported close to the mountains of her native home. The resolution expressed by “I will arise, then,” is not introduced by “then I said,” or any similar phrase: the scene consists of a monologue which dramatically represents that which is experienced. Regarding the second Chatef- Pathach of ‘0%, vid. Baer's Genesis, p. 7. OP is the plur. of pw ( = shavk), as ONS of we (= shaer); the root-word pw (Arab. shak) signifies to press on, to follow after continuously; (Arab) suwak designates perhaps, originally, the place to which one drives cattle for sale, as in the desert; (Arab.) arwak designates the place to which one drives cattle for drink (Wetzst.). The form ΠΌΡΩΝ is without the Daghesh, as are all the forms of this verb except the imper.; the semi-guttural nature of the Xoph has something opposing the simple Sheva.
Shulamith now relates what she further experienced when, impelled by love-sorrow, she wandered through the city:
Ver. 3 The watchmen who go about io the city found me: ** Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?”
Here also (as in ver. 2) there is wanting before the question such a phrase as, “and I asked them, saying:” the monologue relates dramatically. If she described an outward experience, then the question would be a foolish one; for how could she suppose that the watchmen, who make their rounds in the city (Epstein, against Gritz, points for the antiquity of the order to Ps. cxxvii 1; Isa. lxii. 6; cf. xxi. 11), could have any knowledge of her beloved! But if she relates a dream, it is to be remembered that feeling and imagination rise higher than reflection. It is in the very nature of a dream, also, that things thus quickly follow one another without fixed lineaments. This also, that having gone out by night, she found in the streets him whom she sought, is a happy combination of circumstances formed in the dreaming soul; an occurrence without probable external reality, although not without deep inner truth:
Ver. 4 Scarcely had I passed from them, When I found him whom my soal loveth. I seized him, and did not let him go Until I brought him into the house of my mother, And into the chamber of her that gave me birth.
ΘΡΌΞ = paululum, here standing for a sentence: it was as a little that I passed, etc. Without τ᾿ it would be paululum transii; with it, paululum fuit quod transii, without any other distinction than that in the latter case the paululum is more emphatic. Since Shulamith relates something experienced earlier, ‘MINN is not fitly rendered by teneo, but by tenui; and WEIN ND, not by et non dimittam eum, but, as the neg. of BBW), εἰ dimisi eum,—not merely εἰ non dimittebam eum, but et non dimisi eum. In Gen. xxxil. 27, we read the cogn. bv, which signifies, to let go (“let me go”), as ΠΒῚΠ, to let loose, to let free. It is all the same whether we translate, with the subjective colouring, donec introduxerim, or, with the objective, donec introduxi; in either case the meaning is that she held him fast till she brought him, by gentle violence, into her mother's house. With nm’ there is the more definite parallel ὙΠ, which properly signifies (vid. under i, 4), recessus, penetrale; with "DS, the seldom occurring (only, besides, at Hos. ii. 7) MN, part. f. Kal of 5, to conceive, be pregnant, which poetically, with the accus., may mean parturire or parere. In Jacob’s blessing, Gen, xlix. 26, as the text lies before us, his parents are called ‘in; Just as in Arab. wmmdni, properly “my two mothers,” may be used for “my parents;” in the Lat. also, parentes means father and mother zeugmatically taken together. The closing words of the monologue are addressed to the daughters of Jerusalem. Ver. 5 I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
Till she pleases. We are thus obliged apparently to think of the daughters of Jerusalem as being present during the relation of the dream. But since Shulamith in the following Act is for the first time represented as brought from her home to Jerusalem, it is more probable that she represented her experience to herself in secret, without any auditors, and feasting on the visions of the dream, which brought her beloved so near, that she had him by herself alone and exclusively, that she fell into such a love-ecstasy as ii. 7; and pointing to the distant Jerusalem, deprecates all disturbance of this ecstasy, which in itself is like a slumber pervaded by pleasant dreams. In two monologues dramatically constructed, the poet has presented to us a view of the thoughts and feelings by which the inner life of the maiden was moved in the near prospect of becoming a bride and being married. "Whoever reads the Song in the sense in which it is incor- with the canon, and that, too, in the historical sense fulfilled in the N. T., will not be able to read the two scenes from Shulamith’s experience without finding therein a mirror of the intercourse of the soul with God in Christ, and cherishing thoughts such, ¢g., as are expressed in the ancient hymn:
Quando tandem venies, meus amor?
Propera de Libano, dulcis amor!
Duicis veni Jesu!
In this third Act the longing of the loving one after her beloved is finally appeased. The first scene? represents her home-bringing into the royal city. A gorgeous procession which marches towards Jerusalem attracts the attention of the inhabitants of the city.
With all aromatics of the merchants? It is possible that nat and My may be connected; but 7", Ps. xxxiv. 7 (this poor man, properly, this, a poor man), is not analogous, it ought to be T7y7 net, Thus zoth will either be closely connected with Ὅ, and make the question sharper and more animated, as is that in Gen. xii. 18, or it will be the subject which then, as in Isa. xiii. 1, Job xxxviii. 2, ef. below vii. 5b, Jonah iv. 17, Amos ix. 12, quid est hoe quod adscendit, for mt asks after a person, md after a thing, and only per attract. does mi stand for ma in Gen. xxxiii. 8; Judg. xiii 17; Mic. i 5; also not quis est hoc (Vaih.), for zoth after mi has a personal sense, thus: quis (guaenam) haec est. That it is
: Vid. Schlottmann in the Stud. u. Kritiken, 1867, pp. 209-245. Rejecting the dramatic arrangement of this section, he interprets it throughout as 8 song of the chorus of the danghters of Jerusalem, which is already contradicted by 100.
ἃ woman that is being brought forward those who ask know, even if she is yet too far off to be seen by them, because they recognise in the festal gorgeous procession a marriage party. That the company comes up from the wilderness, it may be through the wilderness which separates Jerusalem from J ericho, is in accordance with the fact that a maiden from Galilee is being brought up, and that the procession has taken the way through the Jordan valley (Ghor); but the scene has also a typical colouring; for the wilderness is, since the time of the Mosaic deliverance out of Egypt, an emblem of the transition from a state of bondage to freedom, from humiliation to glory (vid. under Isa. x. 3; Hos. i. 16; Ps. Ixviii. 5). The pomp is like that of a procession before which the censer of frankincense is swung. Columns of smoke from the burning incense mark the line of the procession before and after. nen (Ὁ) here and at Job iii. (vid. N orzi) is formed, as it appears, from ἼΘ᾽, to strive upwards, a kindred form to WOR; cf. Isa. Ixi. 6 with xvii. 6, Ps. xciy. 4; the verb 75", whence the date-palm receives the name YN, is a secondary formation, like ΝΠ to 73K, Certainly this form 77 (cf. on the contrary, min) is not elsewhere to be supported; Schlottm. sees in it nen, from 79M; but such an expansion of the word for Dag. dirimens is scarcely to be supposed. This naming of the pillars of smoke is poet., as Jonah iii, 3; cf. “a pillar of smoke,” Judg. xx. 40. She who approaches comes from the wilderness, brought up to Jerusalem, placed on an elevation, “like pillars of smoke,” i.e. not herself likened thereto, as Schlottm. supposes it must be interpreted (with the tertiwm comp. of the slender, precious, and lovely), but encompassed and perfumed by such. For her whom the procession brings this lavishing of spices is meant; it is she who is incensed or perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. Schlottm. maintains that 07979 cannot mean anything else than “ perfumed,” and therefore he reads M1099 (as Aq. ἀπὸ θυμιάματος, and Jerome). But the word mekuttereth does not certainly stand alone, but with the genit. foll.; and thus as “rent in their clothes,” 2 Sam. xiii. 31, signifies not such as are themselves rent, but those whose clothes are rent (Ewald, ὃ 288d, compare also de Sacy, II. ὃ 321), so ΠΡΟ can also mean those for whom (for whose honour) this incense is expended, and who are thus fumigated with it. 7, myrrh, (Arab.) murr (wid. above under i. 13), stands also in Ex. xxx. 23 and Ps. xlv. 9 at the head of the perfumes; it came from Arabia, as did also frankincense levénd, Arab. lubdn (later referred tc benzoin); both of the names are Semitic, and the circumstance that the 7éra required myrrh as a component part of the holy oil, Ex. xxx. 23, and frankincense as ἃ component part of the holy incense, Ex. xxx. 34, points to Arabia as the source whence they were obtained. To these two principal spices there is added 92D (cf. Gen. vi. 20, ix. 2) as an et cetera. 5257 denotes the travelling spice merchants (traders in aromatics), and traders generally. 22%, which is related to Pf as powder to dust (cf. abacus, a reckoning-table, so named from the sand by means of which arithmetical numbers were reckoned), is the name designating single drugs (ie. dry wares; cf. the Arab, elixir = ξηρόν).
The description of the palanquin now following, one easily attributes to another voice from the midst of the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Ver. 7 Lo! Solomon's palanquin, Threescore berocs are around it, Of the heroes of Israel, 8 All of them armed with the sword, expert in war.
Against fear in the nights. Since #"8%, 9a, is not by itself a word clearly intelligible, so as to lead us fully to determine what is here meant by m0 as distinguished from it, we must let the connection determine. We have before us a figure of that which is called in the post-bibl. Heb. ΠΟΘ ND233 (the bringing-home of the bride). The bridegroom either betook himself to her parents’ house and fetched his bride thence, which appears to be the idea lying at the foundation of Ps. xlv., if, as we believe, the ivory-palaces are those of the king of Israel's house; or she was brought to him in festal procession, and he went forth to meet her, 1 Mace. ix. 39—the prevailing custom, on which the parable of the ten virgins (Matt. xxv.) is founded.’ Here the bride comes from a great distance; and the difference in rank between the Galilean maid and the king brings this result, that he does not himself go and fetch her, but that she is brought to him. She comes, not as in old times Rebecca did, riding on a camel, but is carried in a mittd, which is surrounded by an escort for protection and as a mark of honour. Her way certainly led through the wilderness, where it was necessary, by a safe convoy, to provide against the possibility (min in mippahad, cf. Isa. iv. 6, xxv. 4) of being attacked by robbers; whereas it would be more difficult to understand why the marriage-bed in the palace of the king of peace (1 Chron. xxii. 9) should be surrounded by such
“she who is brought in a carriage;” but this particip. signifies nothing more than (ae‘ate) provecia.
an armed band for protection. That Solomon took care to have his chosen one brought to him with royal honours, is seen in the lavish expenditure of spices, the smoke and fragrance of which signalized from afar the approach of the procession —the mitté, which is now described, can be no other than that in which, sitting or reclining, or half sitting, half reclining, she is placed, who is brought to him in such a cloud of incense. Thus mutta (from nathd, to stretch oneself out), which elsewhere is also used of a bier, 2 Sam. iii. 21 (like the Talm. 01¥= Wy), will here signify a portable bed, a sitting cushion hung round with curtains after the manner of the Indian palanquin, and such as is found on the Turkish caiques or the Venetian gondolas. The appositional nearer definition '¥¥, “ which belonged to Solomon” (vid. under i. 62), shows that it was a royal palanquin, not one belonging to one of the nobles of the people. The bearers are unnamed persons, regarding whom nothing is said; the sixty heroes form only the guard for safety and for honour (sauvegarde), or the escorte or convoie. The sixty are the tenth part (the élite) of the royal body-guard, 1 Sam. xxvii. 2, xxx. ‘), ete. (Schlottm.). If it be asked, Why just 60? we may perhars not unsuitably reply: The number 60 is here, as at vi. 8, the number of Israel multiplied by 5, the fraction of 10; so that thus 60 distinguished warriors form the half of the escort of a king of Israel. 217 NX properly means, held fast by the sword so that it does not let them free, which, according to the sense = holding fast [= practised in the use of the sword]; the Syr. translation of ἘΝ Apoc. renders παντοκράτωρ by “he who is held by all,” z.e. holding it (cf. Ewald, ὃ 149d).
Another voice now describes the splendour of the bed of state which Solomon prepared in honour of Shulamith:
Ver. 9 A bed of state hath King Solomon made for bimself Of the wood of Lebanon. 10 Its pillars hath he made of silver, Its support of gold, its cushion of purple;
The sound of the word, the connection and the description, led the Greek translators (the LXX., Venet., and perhaps also others) to render }EN by φορεῖον, litter, palanquin (Vulg. ferculum). The appiryon here described has a silver pedestal and a purple cushion —as we read in Athenaeus v. 13 (II. p. 317, ed. Schweigh.) that the
1 This deponent use of the part. pass. is common in the Mishna; vid. Geiger’s Lehrbuch zur Sprache der Mishaa, § 16. 5.
philosopher and tyrant Athenion showed himself “on a silver-legged φορεῖον, with purple coverlet;” and the same author, v. 5 (11. p. 253), also says, that on the occasion of a festal procession by Antiochus Epiphanes, behind 200 women who sprinkled ointments from golden urns came 80 women, sitting in pomp on golden-legged, and 500 on silver-legged, @opetca—this is the proper name for the costly women'slitter (Suidas: φορεῖον γυναικεῖον), which, according to the number of bearers (Mart. VL 77: six Cappadocians and, ix. 2, eight Syrians), was called ἑξάφορον (hexaphorum, Mart. II. 81) or ὀκτώφορον (octophorum, Cicero's Verr. v. 10). The Mishna, Sota ix. 14, uses appiryon in the sense of phoreion: “in the last war (that of Hadrian) it was decreed that a bride should not pass through the town in an appiryon [on account of the danger], but our Rabbis sanctioned it later [for modesty’s sake];” as here, “to be carried in an appiryon,” so in Greek, mpotévar (καταστείχειν) ἐν φορείῳ. In the Midrash also, Bamidbar rabba c. 12, and elsewhere, appiryon of this passage before us is taken in all sorts of allegorical significations in most of which the identity of the word with φορεῖον is suppsed, which is also there written f'"® (after Aruch), cf. Isa. xlix. 22, Targ., and is once interchanged with ΒΡ, papilio (pavillon), pleasure-tent. But a Greek word in the Song is in itself so improbable, that Ewald describes this derivation of the word as a frivolous jest; so much the more improbable, as φορεῖον as the name of a litter (Jectica) occurs first in such authors (of the κοινή) as Plutarch, Polybius, Herodian, and the like, and therefore, with greater right, it may be supposed that it is originally a Semitic word, which the Greek language adopted at the time when the Oriental and Graeco- Roman customs began to be amalgamated. Hence, if muta, Τα, means ἃ portable bed,—as is evident from this, that it appears as the means of transport with an escort,—then appiryon cannot also mean a litter; the description, moreover, does not accord with a litter. We do not read of rings and carrying-poles, but, on the contrary, of pillars (as those of a tent-bed) instead, and, as might be expected, of feet. Schlottm., however, takes mittdé and appiryon as different names for a portable bed; but the words, “an appiryon has King Solomon made,” etc., certainly indicate that he who thus speaks has not the appiryon before him, and also that this was something different from the mifta. While Schlottm. is inclined to take appiryon, in the sense of a litter, as a word borrowed from the Greek (but in the time of the first king?), Gesen. in his Zhes. seeks to derive it, thus understood, from 7B, cito Jerri, currere; but this signification of the verb is imaginary. We expect here, in accordance with the progress of the scene, the name of the bridal couch; and on the supposition that appiryon, Sota 12a, as in the Mishna, means the litter (Aruch) of the bride, Arab. maziffat, and not torus nuptialis (Buxt.), then there is a possibility that appiryon is a more dignified word for ’érés,i. 17, yet sufficient thereby to show that ΒΒ is the usual Talm. name of the marriage-bed (e.g. Mezia 238, where it stands, per meton., for concubitus), which is wittily explained by my pan pay (Kethuboth 100, and elsewhere). The Targ. has for it the form "5 (vid. Levy). It thus designates a bed with a canopy (a tent-bed), Deut. xxxii. 50, Jerus; so that the ideas of the bed of state and the palanquin (ef. mvp, canopy, and pynn nds, bridal-bed, Sweca 11a) touch one another. In general, xp (Ρ 5), as is also the case with appiryon, must have been originally a common designation of certain household furniture with a common characteristic; for the Syr. parautha, plur. parjevatha (Wiseman’s Horae, p. 255), or also parha (Castell.), signifies a cradle. It is then to be inquired, whether this word is referable to a root-word which gives a common characteristic with manifold applications. But the Heb. 8, from the R. 15, signifies to split,’ to tear asunder, to break forth, to bring fruit, to be fruitful, and nothing further. Para has nowhere the signification to run, as already remarked; only in the Palest.-Aram. 1B is found in this meaning (wid. Buxt.). The Arab. farr does not signify to run, but to flee; properly (like our “ ausreissen” = to tear out, to break out), to break open by flight the rank in which one stands (as otherwise turned by horse-dealers: to open wide the horse’s mouth). But, moreover, we do not thus reach the common characteristic which we are in search of; for if we may say of the litter that it runs, yet we cannot say that of a bed or a cradle, etc. The Arab. farfdr, species vehiculi muliebris, also does not help us; for the verb farfar, to vacillate, to shake, is its appropriate root-word.? With better results shall we compare the Arab. fary, which, in Kal and Hiph., signifies to break open, to cut out (couper, tailler une étoffe), and also, figuratively, to bring forth something strange, something not yet existing (yafry alfaryya, according to the Arab. Lex.=yaty bal'ajab ty ’amalh, he accomplishes something wonderful); the primary
2 The Turkish Kdamiis says of farfar: ‘‘it is the name of a vehicle (merkeb), like the camel-litter (haudej), destined merely for women.” This also derives its name from rocking to and fro. So farfar, for farfara is to the present day the usual word for agiter, sécouer les ailes; farfarah, for légerete; Jurfir, for butterfly (cf. Ital. farfalla); generally, the ideas of that which is light and of no value—e.g. a babbler—connect themselves with the root far in several derivatives.
meaning in Conj. vili. is evidently: yftarra kidban, to cut out lies, to meditate and to express that which is calumnious (a similar metaphor to khar’a, findere, viii. fingere, to cut out something in the imagination; French, inventer, imaginer). With this fary, however, we do not immediately reach 8'R8, {EBX; for fary, as well as fara (farw), are used only of cutting to pieces, cutting out, sewing together of leather and other materials (cf. Arab. farwat, fur; farrd, furrier), but not of cutting and preparing wood. But why should not the Semitic language have used 78, 88, also, in the sense of the verb 872, which signifies’ to cut and hew, in the sense of forming (cf. Pih. 812, sculpere, Ezek. xxi. 24), as in the Arab. bara and bary, according to Lane, mean, “be formed or fashioned by cutting (a writing-reed, stick, bow), shaped out, or pared,”—in other words: Why should ΠῚ, used in the Arab. of the cutting of leather, not be used, in the Heb. and Aram., of the preparing of wood, and thus of the fashioning of a bed or carriage? As fi28N signifies a machine, and that the work of an engineer, so {8 signifies timber-work, carpenter-work, and, lengthened especially by Aleph prosthet., a product of the carpenter's art, a bed of state. The Aleph prosth. would indeed favour the supposition that appiryon is a foreign word; for the Semitic language frequently forms words after this manner,— eg. ΝΌΟΝ, a magician; NWAON, a stater.? But apart from such words as ΘΝ, oddly sounding in accord with κάρταλλος as appiryon with φορεῖον, MIN and AVYIN are examples of genuine Heb. words with such a prosthesis, i.e. an Aleph added at the beginning of the word; not a formative Aleph, as in 3!28 and the like. 758, palace, Dan. xi. 45, is, for its closer amalgamation by means of Dag., at least an analogous example; for thus it stands related to the Syr. opadna, as, e.g. (Syr.), oparsons, net, Ewald, ὃ 163c, to the Jewish- Aram. §2D758 or δ ΘΒ, cf. also ONBN, “ finally,” in relation to the Pehly. O%158 (Spiegel’s Literatur der Parsen, p. 356)2 We think we have thus proved that 58 is a Heb. word, which, coming from the verb 8, to cut right, to make, frame, signifies‘ a bed, and that, as Ewald also renders, a bed of state.
8 NYREN, quoted by Gesen. in his Thes., Sanhedrin 109}, is not applicable here; it is contracted from ΝΥ ΠΣ ἫΝ (on the bed).
* This derivation explains how it comes that appiryon can mean, in the Karaite Heb., a bird-cage or aviary, vid. Gottlober’s ΠΡ ‘p, p. 208. We have left out of view the phrase mS ΩΣ js, which, in common use, means: we present
MP5) (from 757, R. ps, to lift from beneath, sublevare, then sternere) is the head of the bed; LXX. ἀνάκλυτον; Jerome, reclinatoriwm, which, according to Isidore, is the Lat. vulgar name for the fulchra, the reclining (of the head and foot) of the bedstead. Schlottmann here involuntarily bears testimony that appiryon may at least be understood of a bed of state as well as of a litter of state; for he remarks: “The four sides of the bed were generally adorned with carved work, ivory, metal, or also, as in the case of most of the Oriental divans, with drapery.” “ Nec mihi tunc,” says Propertius, 11, 10, 11, “fulcro lectus sternatur eburno.’ Here the fulcrum is not of ivory, but of gold.
337) (from 139, to lie upon anything; Arab. II. componere; Aethiop. adipisct) is that which one takes possession of, sitting or lying upon it, the cushion, eg. of a saddle (Lev. xv. 9); here, the divan (vid. Lane, Mod. Egypt, I. 10) arranged on an elevated frame, serving both as a seat and as a couch. Red purple is called 238, probably from 03) = 039, as material of variegated colour. By the interior jim of the bed, is probably meant a covering which lay above this cushion. ἤν, to arrange together, to combine (whence nas, pavement; Arab. rusafat, a paved way), is here meant like στορέννυμι, στόρνυμι, στρώννυμι, Whence στρῶμα. And ‘TX AAYD is not equivalent to TS)¥ (after the construction 1 Kings xxii. 10; Ezek. ix. 2), inlaid with love, but is the adv. accus. of the manner; “love” (cf. hhesed, Ps, cxli. 5) denotes the motive: laid out or made up as a bed from love on the part of the daughters of Jerusalem, 1.6. the ladies of the palace—these from love to the king have procured a costly tapestry or tapestries, which they have spread over the purple cushion. Thus rightly Vaihinger in his Comm., and Merx, Archiv. Bd. If. 111-114. Schlottmann finds this interpretation of jo “stiff and hard;” but although [Ὁ in the pass. is not used like the Greek ὑπό, yet it can be used like ἀπό (Ewald, sec. 2956); and if there be no actual example of this, yet we point to Ps. xlv. in illustration of the custom of presenting gifts to a newly - married pair. He himself understands m3ns personally, as do also Ewald, Heiligst., Béttcher; “the voice of the people,”
says Ewald, “knows that the finest ornament with which the in-
to him homage (of approbation or thanks). It occurs first, as uttered by the Sassanidean king, Shabur 1., Mezia 119a, extr.; and already Rapoport, in his Erech Millin, 1852, p. 183, has recognised this word appiryon as Pers. It is the Old Pers. dfrina or Gfrivana (from fri, to love), which signifies blessing or benediction (vid. Justi’s Handb. d. Zendsprache, p. 51), Rashi is right in glossing it by jn s25v (the testimony of our favour).
visible interior of the couch is adorned, is a love from among the daughters of Jerusalem,——ie. some one of the court ladies who was raised, from the king’s peculiar love to her, to the rank of a queen-consort. The speaker thus ingeniously names this newest favourite ‘a love,’ and at the same time designates her as the only thing with which this elegant structure, all adorned on the outside
is adorned within.” Relatively better Bottcher: with a love (beloved one), prae filiis Hierus, But even though mane, like amor and amores, might be used of the beloved one herself, yet |1x does not harmonize with this, seeing we cannot speak of being paved or tapestried with persons. Schlottm. in vain refers for the personal signification of manx to ii. 7, where it means love and nothing else, and seeks to bring it into accord with #19; for he remarks, “as the stone in mosaic work fills the place destined for it, so the bride the interior of the litter, which is intended for just one person filling it.’ But is this not more comical, without intending to be so, than Juvenal’s (i. 1. 32 8.):
Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis Plena ipso....
But Schlottm. agrees with us in this, that the marriage which is here being prepared for was the consummation of the happiness of Solomon and Shulamith, not of another woman, and not the consummation of Solomon's assault on the fidelity of Shulamith, who hates him to whom she now must belong, loving only one, the shepherd for whom she is said to sigh (i. 4a), that he would come and take her away. “This triumphal procession,” says Rocke,’ “was for her a mourning procession, the royal litter a bier; her heart died within her with longing for her beloved shepherd.” Touching, if it were only true! Nowhere do we see her up to this point resisting; much rather she is happy in her love. The shepherd-hypothesis cannot comprehend this marriage procession without introducing incongruous and imaginary things; it is a poem of the time of Gellert. Solomon the seducer, and Shulamith the heroine of virtue, are figures as from Gellert’s Swedish Countess; they are moral commonplaces personified, but not real human beings. In the litter sits Shulamith, and the appiryon waits for her. Solomon rejoices that now the reciprocal love-bond is to find its conclusion; and what Shulamith, who is brought from a lowly to so lofty a station, experiences, we shall hear her describe in the sequel.
East; or, Family Sins and Love's Devotion. A Moral Mirror for the Betrothed and Married], 1851.
At the close of the scene, the call now goes forth to the daughters of Zion, 7c. the women of J erusalem collectively, to behold the king, who now shows himself to the object of his love and to the jubilant crowd, as the festal procession approaches,
Ver. 11 Come out, ye daughters of Zion, and see King Solomon with the crown With which his mother crowned him On the day of his espousal, And on the day of the gladness of his heart.
The women of the court, as distinguished from the Galilean maiden, are called “daughters of Jerusalem;” here, generally, the women of Zion or Jerusalem (Lam. v. 11) are called “ daughters of Zion.” Instead of M2X¥ (since the verb Lamed Aleph is treated after the manner of verbs Lamed He, cf. Jer. 1. 20; Ezek. xxiii, 49), M°8¥, and that defect. 728¥," is used for the sake of assonance with AYN;? elsewhere also, as we have shown at Isa. xxii. 13, an unusual form is used for the sake of the sound. It is seen from the Sota (ix. 14) that the old custom for the bridegroom to wear a “crown” was abolished in consequence of the awful war with Vespasian. Rightly Epstein, against Gritz, shows from Job xxxi. 36, Isa. xxvii. 1, Ps. ciii. 4, that men also crowned themselves. MOY2 (with the crown) is, according to the best authorities, without the art., and does not require it, since it is determined by the relat. clause following. nan is the marriage (the word also used in the post.-bibl. Heb., and interchanging with 75n, properly νυμφών, Matt. ix. 15), from the verb jf", which, proceeding from the root-idea of cutting into (Arab. khatn, to circumcise; R. nn, whence 3N, onn, nn), denotes the pressing into, or going into, another family; jNN is he who enters into such a relation of affinity, and }Nh the father of her who is taken away, who also on his part is related to the husband.’ Here also the seduction fable is shattered. The marriage with Shulamith takes place with the joyful consent of the queenmother. In order to set aside this fatal circumstance, the “crown ”
1 Without the Jod after Aleph in the older ed. Thus also in J and H with the note pny n‘S [= nonnisi h. 1. et defective] agreeing with the Ms. Masora Parna. Thus also Kimchi, Michlol 1080..
2 The Resh has in H Chatef-Pathach, with Metheg preceding. This, according to Ben-Asher’s rule, is correct (cf. Ps. xxviii. 9. '"3). In the punctuation of the Aleph with Tsere or Segol the Codd. vary, according to the different views of the punctuation. J has Segol; D H, Tsere, which latter also Kimchi, Michlol 109a.
81, Geiger (Ursprung der Sprache, 1869, p. 88) erroneously finds in R. nn (ann, etc.) the meaning of binding. The (Arab.) noun Khatan means first a is referred back to the time when Solomon was married to Pharaoh’s daughter. Cogitandus est Salomo, says Heiligst., gui ewm Sulamitha pompa sollemni Hierosolyma redit, eadem corona nuptiali ornatus, qua quum filiam regis Aegyptiorum uxorem duxeret ornatus erat. But was he then so poor or niggardly as to require to bring forth this old crown? and so basely regardless of his legitimate wife, of equal rank with himself, as to wound her by placing this crown on his head in honour of a rival? No; at the time when this youthful love-history occurred, Pharaoh’s daughter was not yet married. The mention of his mother points us to the commencement of his reign. His head is not adorned with a crown which had already been worn, but with a fresh garland which his mother wreathed around the head of her youthful son. The men have already welcomed the procession from afar; but the king in his wedding attire has special attractions for the women—they are here called upon to observe the moment when the happy pair welcome one another,
This scene contains a conversation between Solomon and his beloved, whom he at first calls friend, and then, drawing always nearer to her, bride. The place of the conversation is, as v. 1 shows, the marriage hall. That the guests there assembled hear what Solomon says to Shulamith, one need not suppose; but the poet has overheard it from the loving pair. Fairer than ever does Shulamith appear to the king. He praises her beauty, beginning with her eyes.
Chap. iv. la Lo, thou art fair, my friend! yes, thou art fair! Thine eyes are doves behind thy veil. The Gr. Venet. translates, after Kimchi, “looking out from behind, thy hair flowing down from thy head like a mane.” Thus also Schultens, capillus plerus; and Hengst., who compares πλέγμα, 1 Tim. ii. 9, and ἐμπλοκὴ τριχῶν, 1 Pet. iii. 3, passages which do not accord with the case of Shulamith; but neither DDY, κῶν DOF signifies to plait; the latter is used of the hair when it is too abundant, and ready for the shears. To understand the hair as married man, and then any relation on the side of the wife (Lane); the fundamental idea must be the same as that of Khatn, circumcidere (cf. Ex. iv. 25), viz that of penetrating, which nnn, percellere, and nn), descendere (cf. 6.5. ferrum descendit haud alte in corpus, in Livy, and Prov. xvii. 1), also exhibit.
denoted here, is, moreover, inadmissible, inasmuch as yap cannot be used of the eyes in relation to the braids of hair hanging before them. Symm. rightly translates nox by κάλυμμα [veil] (in the Song the LXX. erroneously renders by σιωπήσεως [behind thy silence}), Isa. xlvii. 2. The verb ΟΝ, (Arab.) samm, to make firm, solid, massive, impenetrable; whence eg. (Arab.) simam, a stopper, and (Arab.) alsamma, a plaid in which one veils himself, when he wraps it around him.” The veil is so called, as that which closely hides the face. In the Aram. DD¥, Pulp. DXM¥, means directly to veil, as eg. Bereshith rabba c. 45, extr., of a matron whom the king lets pass before him it is said, mx» Apyy’y. Shulamith is thus veiled. As the Roman bride wore the velum flammeum, so also the Jewish bride was deeply veiled; cf. Gen. xxiv. 65, where Rebecca veiled herself (Lat. nwbit) before her betrothed. 3, constr. 7Y3, a segolate noun, which denotes separation, is a prep. in the sense of one, as in Arab. in that of post. Ewald, sec. 217m, supposes, contrary to the Arab., the fundamental idea of covering (cogn. 733); but that which surrounds is thought of as separating, and at the same time as covering, the thing which it encompasses. From behind her veil, which covered her face (vid. Bachmann, under Judg. iii. 23), her eyes gleam out, which, without needing to be supplemented by ‘2Y, are compared, as to their colour, motion, and lustre, to a pair of doves. From the eyes the praise passes to the hair. Ver. 1b Thy hair is like a flock of goats Which repose downwards on Mount Gilead.
The hair of the bride’s head was uncovered. We know from later times that she wore in it a wreath of myrtles and roses, or also a ‘golden city” (anr Sv 7y), 6. an ornament which emblematically represented Jerusalem. To see that this comparison is not incongruous, we must know that sheep in Syria and Palestine are for the most part white; but goats, for the most part, black, or at least dark coloured, as eg. the brown gedi Mamri2 The verb via is the
1 Regarding this verbal stem and its derivatives, see Ethé’s Schlafgemach der Phantasie, pp. 102-105.
2 Burns, the Scottish poet, thinking that goats are white, transfers the comparison from the hair to the teeth:
“ Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, With fleeces newly washen clean, That slowly mount the rising steep; And she’s twa glancin’, sparklin’ een.”
the synon. Js3 in this, that the former is used of him who has previously lain down; the latter, of one who first stands and then sits down! The nejd bears also the name jals,as the high land raising itself, and like a dome sitting above the rest of the land. One has to think of the goats as having lain down, and thus with the upper parts of their bodies as raised up. 1? in ὝΠΟ is used almost as in ‘71D 1, Isa. xl. 15. A flock of goats encamped on a mountain (rising up, to one looking from a distance, as in a steep slope, and almost perpendicularly), and as if hanging down lengthwise on its sides, presents a lovely view adorning the landscape. Solomon likens to this the appearance of the locks of his beloved, which hang down over her shoulders. She was till now a shepherdess, therefore a second rural image follows: Ver. 2 Thy teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep
And a bereaved one is not among them. The verb 23? is, as the Arab. shows, in the sense of tondere oves, the synon. of 1. With shorn (not to be shorn) sheep, the teeth in regard to their smoothness, and with washed sheep in regard to their whiteness, are compared—as a rule the sheep of Palestine are white; in respect of their full number, in which in pairs they correspond to one another, the one above to the one below, like twin births in which there is no break. The parallel passage, vi 6, omits the point of comparison of the smoothness. That some days after the shearing the sheep were bathed, is evident from Columella vii. 4. Regarding the incorrect exchange of mas. with fem. forms, vid. under ii. 7. The part. Hiph. ΓΑ ἈΠῸ (cf. διδυματόκος, Theocr. 1. 25) refers to the mothers, none of which has lost a twin of the pair she had borne. In “which come up from the washing,” there is perhaps thought of, at the same time with the whiteness, the saliva dentiwm. The moisture of the saliva, which heightens the glance of the teeth, is frequently mentioned in the love-songs of Mutenebbi, Hariri, and Deschami. And that the saliva of a clean and sound man is not offensive, is seen from this, that the Lord healed a blind man by means of His spittle.
The mouth is next praised: Ver. 3a Like a thread of crimson thy lips, And thy mouth is lovely.
direction from beneath to above; in k’ad (properly, to heap together, to cower down), from above to beneath.
As distinguished from red- purple, M8, Δ (properly, shining, glistening; for this form has an active signification, like "09, as well as a passive, like ‘2¥)—fully, ἢν nybin—sionifies the kermes or worm-colour; the karmese, the red juice of the cochineal. ya (11279) is translated by the LXX. “thy speech;” Jerome, eloquium; and the Venet. “thy dialogue;” but that would be expressed, though by adm. dey., by 1827. 1379 is here the name of the mouth, the naming of which one expects; the preform. is the mem instrwmenti: the mouth, as the instrument of speech, as the organ by which the soul expresses itself in word and in manner of speech. The poet needed for 78 a fuller, more select word; just as in Syria the nose is not called ἀπῇ, but minchdr (from nachara, to blow, to breathe hard). Praise of her temples. Ver. 3b Like a piece of pomegranate thy temples Behind thy veil. Mp) is the thin piece of the skull on both sides of the eyes; Lat., mostly in the plur., tempora; German, schléfe, from schlaff, loose, slack, 7. weak =P. The figure points to that soft mixing of colours which makes the colouring of the so-called carnation one of the most difficult accomplishments in the art of painting. The half of a cut pomegranate (Jer. fragmen malt punict) is not meant after its outer side, as Zockler supposes, for he gives to the noun rakka, contrary to Judg. iv. 21, v. 26, the meaning of cheek, a meaning which it has not, but after its inner side, which presents? a red mixed and tempered with the ruby colour,—a figure so much the more appropriate, since the ground-colour of Shulamith’s countenance is a subdued white.’ Up to this point the figures are borrowed from the circle of vision of a shepherdess. Now the king derives them from the sphere of his own experience as the ruler of a kingdom. She who has eyes like doves is in form like a born queen. Ver. 4 Like the tower of David thy neck, Built in terraces;
1 The interior of a pomegranate is divided by tough, leather-like white or yellow skins, and the divisions are filled with little berries, in form and size like those of the grape, in the juicy inside of which little, properly, seed-corns, are found. The berries are dark red, or also pale red. The above comparison points to the mixing of these two colours.
?The Moslem erotic poets compare the division of the lips to the dividing cleft into ἃ pomegranate.
The tower of David is, as it appears, “the tower of the flock,” Mic. iv. 4, from which David surveyed the flock of his people. In Neh. iii. 25 f. it is called the “tower which lieth out from the king’s high house,” ie. not the palace, but a government house built on Zion, which served as a court of justice. But what is the meaning of the dm, Aey. Ni°82R% Gritz translates: for a prospect; but the Greek τηλωπός, of which he regards ‘bn as the Heb. abstr., is a word so rare that its introduction into the Semitic language is on that account improbable. Hengst. translates: built for hanging swords; and he sees in the word a compound of 9A (from 72m, with which forms such as " = jadj, WW = shadj, Sy, 2 Sam. vi. 7, are compared) and ΓΒ; but this latter word signifies, not swords, but edges of the (double-edged) sword; wherefore Kimchi (interpreting 9 as the constr. of 9, as 28, in ONDYR, is of 5¥) explains: an erection of sharp-cornered stones; and, moreover, the Heb. language knows no such nmm. comp. appellativa: the names of the frog, MY, and the bat, MOLY (cf. the Beth in (Arab.) sa’lab, fox, with the added Pe), are not such; and also tsalmaveth, the shadow of death, is at a later period, for the first time, restamped? as such from the original tsalmuth (cf. Arab. zalumat =tenebrae). Gesen. obtains the same meanings; for he explains ‘n> by exitialibus (se. armis), from an adj. ‘878, from nbn = Arab. talifa, to perish, the inf. of which, talaf, is at the present day a word synon. with halak (to perish); (Arab.) matlaf (place of going down) is, like pow, a poetic name of the wilderness. The explanation is acceptable but hazardous, since neither the Heb. nor the Aram. shows a trace of this verb; and it is thus to be given up, if ‘sn can be referred to a verbal stem to be found in the Heb. and Aram. This is done in Ewald’s explanation, to which also Bottcher and Rédig. give the preference: built for close (crowded) troops (so, viz., that many hundreds or thousands find room therein); the (Arab.) verb aff, to wrap together (opp. nashar, to unfold), is used of the packing together of multitudes of troops (Jif, plur. lufuf), and also of warlike hand-to-hand conflicts; ‘son would be traced to a verb ΠΕΡ synon. therewith, after the form ™8A, But if ‘fon were meant of troops, then they would be denoted as the garrison found therein, and it would not be merely said that the tower was built for such; for the point of comparison would then be, the imposing look of the neck, overpowering by the force of the impression proceeding from within. But now, in the Aram., and relatively in the Talm. Heb, not only 959 and *> occur, but also ‘5? (Af. ‘8?8), and that in
1 Cf. regarding such double words belonging to the more modern Semitic language, Jesurun, pp. 232-236.
the sense of enclosure, i.e. of j oining together, the one working into the other,—e.g. in the Targ.: of the curtain of the tabernacle ("i> va, place of the joining together = N73 or N13N» of the Heb. text); and in the Talm.: of the roofs of two houses (Bathra 6a, NAB, the joining’). Accordingly ‘pSnb, if we interpret the Zamed not of the definition, but of the norm, may signify, “in ranks together.” The Zamed has already been thus rendered by Déderl.: “in turns” (cf. np), to turn, to wind); and by Meier, Mr.: “in gradation;” and Aq. and Jerome also suppose that ‘nbn refers to component parts of the building itself, for they understand? pinnacles or parapets (ἐπάλξεις, propugnacula); as also the Venet.: εἰς ἐπάλξεις χιλίας. But the name for pinnacles is 38, and their points, nivmy; while, on the contrary, ‘nbn is the more appropriate name for terraces which, connected together, rise the one above the other. Thus to build towers like terraces, and to place the one, as it were, above the other, was a Babylonian custom.* The comparison lies in this, that Shulamith’s neck was surrounded with ornaments so that it did not appear as a uniform whole, but as composed of terraces. That the neck is represented as hung round with ornaments, the remaining portion of the description shows,
2D signifies a shield, as that which protects, like clupeus (clypeus), perhaps connected with καλύπτειν and poy, from bow = (Arab.) shahita, as a hard impenetrable armour. The latter is here the more common word, which comprehends, with }32, the round shield; also M3¥, the oval shield, which covers the whole body; and other forms of shields, 7250 ADK, “the thousand shields,’ has the indicative, if not (vid. under i. 11) the generic article. The appositional wow bb ‘33 is not intended to mean: all shields of (von) heroes, which it would if the article were prefixed to col and omitted before gibborim, or if nds, iii. 8, were used; but it means: all the shields of heroes, as the accentuation also indicates. The article is also here significant. Solomon made, according to 1 Kings x. 16 f., 200 golden targets and 300 golden shields, which he put in the house of the forest of Lebanon. These golden shields Pharaoh Shishak took away with him, and Rehoboam replaced them by “ shields of brass,” which the guards bore when they accompanied the king on his going into the temple (1 Kings xiv. 26-28; cf. 2 Chron. xii. 9-11); these
1 The Arab. lafa, vi., proceeding from the same root-idea, signifies to bring in something again, to bring in again, to seek to make good again.,
“shields of David,” tc. shields belonging to the king's house, were given to the captains of the guard on the occasion of the raising of Joash to the throne, 2 Kings xi. 10; ef. 2 Chron. xxiii 9. Of these brazen shields, as well as of those of gold, it is expressly said how and where they were kept, nowhere that they were hung up outside on a tower, the tower of David. Such a display of the golden shields is also very improbable. We will perhaps have to suppose that 4} describes the tower of David, not as it actually was, but as one has to represent it to himself, that it might be a figure of Shulamith’s neck. ‘This is compared to the terraced tower of David, if one thinks of it as hung round by a thousand shields which the heroes bore, those heroes, namely, who formed the king’s body-guard. Thus it is not strange that to the 200 + 300 golden shields are here added yet 500 more; the body-guard, reckoned in companies of 100 each, 2 Kings xi. 4, is estimated as consisting of 1000 men. The description, moreover, corresponds with ancient custom. The words are YY "DA, not 12 8A; the outer wall of the tower is thought of as decorated with shields hung upon it. That shields were thus hung round on tower-walls, Ezekiel shows in his prophecy regarding Tyre, xxvii. 11; cf. 1 Mace. iv. 57, and supra foris Capitolinae aedis, Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv. 3; and although we express the presumption that Solomon’s imagination represented David's tower as more gorgeous than it actually was, yet we must confess that we are not sufficiently acquainted with Solomon’s buildings to be able to pass judgment on this. These manifold inexplicable references of the Song to the unfolded splendour of Solomon’s reign, are favourable to the Solomonic authorship of the book. This grandiose picture of the distinguished beauty of the neck, and the heightening of this beauty by the ornament of chains, is now followed by a beautiful figure, which again goes back to the use of the language of shepherds, and terminates the description: Ver. 5 Thy two breasts are like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle, Which feed among lilies,
The dual, originating in the inner differ. of the plur., which denotes in Heb. not two things of any sort, but two paired by nature or by art, exists only in the principal form; 50'7¥, as soon as inflected, is unrecognisable, therefore here, where the pair as such is praised, the word ‘2% is used. The breasts are compared to a twin pair of young gazelles in respect of their equality and youthful freshness, and the bosom on which they raise themselves is compared to a meadow covered with lilies, on which the twin-pair of young gazelles feed.
With this tender lovely image the praise of the attractions of the chosen one is interrupted. If one counts the lips and the mouth as a part of the body, which they surely are, there are seven things here praised, as Hengst. rightly counts (the eyes, the hair, teeth, mouth, temples, neck, breasts); and Hahn speaks with right of the sevenfold beauty of the bride. Shulamith replies to these words of praise: Ver. 6 Until the day cools and the shadows flee, I will go forth to the mountain of myrrh And to the hill of frankincense.
All those interpreters who suppose these to be a continuation of Solomon’s words, lose themselves in absurdities. Most of them understand the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense of Shulamith’s attractions, praised in ver. 5, or of her beauty as a whole; but the figures would be grotesque (cf. on the other hand v. 13), and 8 ‘2 728 prosaic, wherefore it comes that the idea of betaking oneself away connects itself with 5 7$n (Gen. xii 1; Ex. xviii. 27), or that it yet preponderates therein (Gen. xxii. 2; Jer. v. 5), and that, for ° 75x in the passage before us in reference to ii. 10, 11, the supposition holds that it will correspond with the French jé m’en trai. With right Louis de Leon sees in the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense names of shady and fragrant places; but he supposes that Solomon says he wishes to go thither to enjoy a siesta, and that he invites Shulamith thither. But we read nothing of this invitation; and that a bridegroom should sleep a part of his marriage-day is yet more unnatural than that, 6..., Wilh. Budaus, the French philologist, spent a part of the same at work in his study. That not Solomon but Shulamith speaks here is manifest in the beginning, “until the day,” etc., which at ii 17 are also Shulamith’s words. Anton (1773) rightly remarks, “Shulamith says this to set herself free.” But why does she seek to make herself free? It is answered, that she longs to be forth from Solomon’s too ardent eulogies; she says that, as soon as it is dark, she will escape to the blooming aromatic fields of her native home, where she hopes to meet with her beloved shepherd. Thus, ἐν, Ginsburg (1868). But do myrrh and frankincense grow in North Palestine? Ginsburg rests on Florus’ Epitome Rerwm Rom. iii 6, where Pompey the Great is said to have passed over Lebanon and by Damascus “per nemora illa odorata, per thuris et balsami sylvas.” But by these thuris et balsami sylvae could be meant only the gardens of Damascus; for neither myrrh nor frankincense is indigenous to North Palestine, or generally to any part of Palestine.
Friedrich (1866) cherefore places Shulamith’s home at Engedi, and supposes that she here once more looks from the window and dotes on the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense, “where, at the approach of twilight, she was wont to look out for her betrothed shepherd.” But Shulamith, as her name already denotes, is not from the south, but is a Galilean, and her betrothed shepherd is from Utopia! That myrrh and frankincense were planted in the gardens of Engedi is possible, although (i. 14) mention is made only of the Al-henna there. But here places in the neighbourhood of the royal palace must be meant; for the myrrh tree, the gum of which, prized as an aroma, is the Arab. Balsamodendron Myrrha, and the frankincense tree, the resin of which is used for incense, is, like the myrrh tree, an Arab. amyrid. The Boswellia serrata, indigenous to the East Indies, furnishes the best frankincense; the Israelites bought it from Sheba (Isa. lx. 6; Jer. vi. 20). The myrrh tree as well as the frankincense tree were thus exotics in Palestine, as they are in our own country; but Solomon, who had intercourse with Arabia and India by his own mercantile fleet, procured them for his own garden (Eccles. ii. 5). The modest Shulamith shuns the loving words of praise; for she requests that she may be permitted to betake herself to the lonely places planted with myrrh and frankincense near the king's palace, where she thinks to tarry in a frame of mind befitting this day till the approaching darkness calls her back to the king. It is the importance of the day which suggests to her this Ὁ 7x, a day in which she enters into the covenant of her God with Solomon (Prov. ii. 17). Without wishing to allegorize, we may yet not omit to observe, that the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense put us in mind of the temple, where incense, composed of myrrh, frankincense, and other spices, ascended up before God every morning and evening (Ex. xxx. 34 ff). ὙΠ 77 is perhaps a not unintentional accord to mina 19 (2 Chron. iii. 1), the mountain where God appeared; at all events, “mountain of myrrh” and “hill of frankincense” are appropriate names for places of devout meditation, where one holds fellowship with God.
This childlike modest disposition makes her yet more lovely in the eyes of the king. He breaks out in these words:
Ver. 7 Thou art altogether fair, my love, And no blemish in thee. Certainly he means, no blemish either of soul or body. In vers. 1-5 he has praised her external beauty; but in ver. 6 her soul has disclosed itself; the fame of her spotless beauty is there extended to 1 Lassen’s Ind. Alterthumskunde, 1. 334.
her soul no less than to her external appearance. And as to her longing after freedom from the tumult and bustle of court life, he thus promises to her:
Ver. 8 With me from Lebanon, my bride, With me from Lebanon shalt thou come; Shalt look from the top of Amana, From the top of Shenir and Hermon, From dens of lions, From mountains of leopards.
Zockl. interprets ‘AX in the sense of bye and "3WM in the sense of journeying to this definite place: “he announces to her in overflowing fulness of expression, that from this time forth, instead of the lonely mountainous regions, and the dangerous caves and dens, she shall inhabit with him the royal palace.” Thus also Kingsbury. But the interpretation, however plausible, cannot be supported. For (1) such an idea ought to be expressed either by '3n 8 or by Δ ‘AN ‘3M, instead of ‘2M ‘AN; (2) Shulamith is not from Lebanon, nor from the Anti-Libanus, which looks toward Damascus; (3) this would be no answer to Shulamith’s longing for lonely quietness. We therefore hold by our explanation given in 1851. He seeks her to go with him up the steep heights of Lebanon, and to descend with him from thence; for while ascending the mountain one has no view before him, but when descending he has the whole panorama of the surrounding region lying at his feet. Thus ‘vn is not to be understood as at Isa. lvii. 9, where it has the meaning of migrabas, but, as at Num. xxiii. 9, it means spectabis. With ‘© the idea of prospect lies nearer than that of descending; besides, the meaning spectare is secondary, for δ signifies first “co go, proceed, journey,” and then “going to view, to go in order to view.’ Sér in Arab. means “the scene,” and sér etmek in Turkish, “to contemplate” (cf. Arab. tamashy, to walk, then, to contemplate). Lebanon is the name of the Alpine range which lies in the N.-W. of the Holy Land, and stretches above 20 (German) miles from the Leontes (Nahr el- Kasmte) northwards to the Eleutheros (Nahr el-Kebir). The other three names here found refer to the Anti-Libanus separated from the Lebanon by the Coelo-Syrian valley, and stretching from the Banias northwards to the plain of Hamath.
Amana denotes that range of the Anti-Libanus from which the springs of the river Amana issue, one of the two rivers which the Syrian captain (2 Kings v. 12) named as better than all the waters of Israel. These are the Amana and Pharpar, 1.6. the Baradd and A’wadsh; to the union of the Barada (called by the Greeks Chry- sorrhoas, i.e. “golden stream”) with the Feidshe, the environs of Damascus owe their ghuwdat, their paradisaical beauty.
Hermon (from 0%, to cut off; cf. Arab. kharom and makhrim, the steep projection of a mountain) is the most southern peak of the Anti-Libanus chain, the lofty mountains (about 10,000 feet above the level of the sea) which form the north-eastern border of Palestine, and from which the springs of the Jordan take their rise.
Another section of the Anti-Libanus range is called Senir, not Shenir. The name, in all the three places where it occurs (Deut. iii 9; 1 Chron. v. 23), is, in accordance with tradition, to be written with Sin. The Onkelos Targum writes pop; the Jerusalem paraphrases, “WD ἸΟῪ XN (the mountain whose fruits become putrid, viz. on account of their superabundance); the Midrash explains otherwise: ὍΣ ΜΟῚ xiny (the mountain which resists being broken up by the plough),—everywhere the writing of the word with the letter Sin is supposed. According to Deut. ii 9, this was the Amorite name of Hermon. The expression then denotes that the Amorites called Hermon—ie. the Anti-Libanus range, for they gave the name of a part to the whole range—by the name
Damascus, with which the statement of Schwarz (Das h. Land, p. 33) agrees, that the Hermon (Anti-Libanus) to the north-west of Damascus is called Senfr.
nD), panthers, to the present day inhabit the clefts and defiles of the Lebanon, and of the Anti-Libanus running parallel to it; whereas lions have now altogether disappeared from the countries of the Mediterranean. In Solomon’s time they were to be met with in the lurking-places of the Jordan valley, and yet more frequently in the remote districts of the northern Alpine chains. From the heights of these Alps Solomon says Shulamith shall alone with him look down from where the lions and panthers dwell. Near these beasts of prey, and yet inaccessible by them, shall she enjoy the prospect of the extensive pleasant land which was subject to the sceptre of him who held her safe on these cliffs, and accompanied her over these giddy heights. If “mountain of myrrh,” so also “the top of Amana” is not without subordinate reference. Amana, proceeding from the primary idea of firmness and verification, signifies fidelity and the faithful covenant as it is established between God and the congregation, for He betrothes it to Himself mona (“in faithfulness”), Hos. ii. 22; the congregation of which the apostle (Eph. v. 27) says the same as is here said by
Solomon of Shulamith. Here for the first time he calls her 753, not ‘N93; for that, according to the usus log. would mean “my daughter-in-law.” Accordingly, it appears that the idea of “ daughterin-law” is the primary, and that of “bride” the secondary one. nda, which is = nod, as DN, a cake, is = ΠΡΟΤῚ, that which is pierced through (cf. nina, being espoused; Jer. ii. 2), appears to mean’ (cf. what was said regarding }0M under iii. 119) her who is comprehended with the family into which, leaving her parents’ house, she enters; not her who is embraced = crowned with a garland (cf. Arab. lS, to be garlanded; ¢ekltl, garlanding; iklil, Syr. Klilo, a wreath), or her who is brought to completion (cf. the verb, Ezek. xxvil. 4, 11), 6. has reached the goal of her womanly calling. Besides, ΠΣ, like “ Braut” in the older German (e.g. Gudrun), means not only her who is betrothed, but also her who has been lately married.
All that the king calls his, she now can call hers; for she has won his heart, and with his heart himself and all that is his.
Ver. 9 Thou hast taken my heart, my sister-bride; Thou hast taken my heart with one of thy glances, With a little chain of thy necklace.
The Piel 23? may mean to make courageous, and it actually has this meaning in the Aram., wherefore the Syr. retains the word; Symm. renders it by ἐθάρσυνάς we. Butis it becoming in a man who is no coward, especially in a king, to say that the love he cherishes gives him heart, 1.6. courage? It might be becoming, perhaps, in a warrior who is inspired by the thought of his beloved, whose respect and admiration he seeks to gain, to dare the uttermost. But Solomon is no Antar, no wandering knight.’ Besides, the first effect of love is different: it influences those whom it governs, not as encouraging, in the first instance, but as disarming them; love responded to encourages, but love in its beginning, which is the subject here, overpowers. We would thus more naturally render: “thou hast unhearted me;” but “to unheart,” according to the Semitic and generally the ancient conception of the heart (Psychol. p. 254), dees not so much mean to
2 A specimen of Béttcher’s interpretation: ‘‘ What is more natural than to suppose that the keeper of a vineyard showed herself with half of her head and neck exposed at the half-opened window to her shepherd on his first attempt to set her free, when he cried, ‘ my dove in the clefts of the rocks,’ etc., and animated him thereby to this present bold deliverance of her from the midst of robbers?” We pity the Shulamitess, that she put her trust in this moonshiny coward, captivate the heart, as rather to deprive of understanding or of judgment (cf. Hos.iv.11). Such denomin. Pi. of names of corporeal members signify not merely taking away, but also wounding, and generally any violent affection of it, as 33}, 073, Ewald, § 120c; accordingly the LXX., Venet., and Jerome: ἐκαρδίωσάς pe, vulnerasti cor meum. The meaning is the same for “thou hast wounded my heart” = “thou hast subdued my heart” (cf. Ps. xlv. 60). With one of her glances, with a little chain of her necklace, she has overcome him as with a powerful charm: veni, visa sum, υἱοὶ, The Kert changes SNX3 into NON; certainly [Y is mostly fem. (eg. Judg. xvi. 28), but not only the non-bibl. wsus log., which eg. prefers "37 or 37 PY, of a malignant bewitching look, but also the bibl. (vid. Zech. iii 9, iv. 10) treats the word as of double gender. P2? and OY are related to each other as a part is to the whole. With the subst. ending ὅπ, the designation of an ornament designed for the neck is formed from 8%, the neck; cf. f.7’, the “round tires like the moon” of the women’s toilet, Isa. iii. 18 ff. P22 (connected with P23) PW, cervix) is a separate chain (Aram. ΡΨ) of this necklace. In the words P2¥ IN, IM8 is used instead of IHX, occurring also out of genit. connection (Gen. xlvill. 22; 2 Sam. xvii. 22), and the arrangement (vid. under Ps. Ixxxix. 51) follows the analogy of the pure numerals as Ὁ we; it appears to be transferred from the vulgar language to that used in books, where, besides the passage before us, it occurs only in Dan. viii. 13. That a glance of the eye may pierce the heart, experience shows; but how can a little chain of a necklace do this? Thatalsois intelligible. As beauty becomes unlike itself when the attire shows want of taste, so by means of tasteful clothing, which does not need to be splendid, but may even be of the simplest kind, it becomes mighty. Hence the charming attractive power of the impression one makes communicates itself to all that he wears, as, ¢.g.,the woman with the issue of blood touched with joyful hope the hem of Jesus’ garment; for he who loves feels the soul of that which is loved in all that stands connected therewith, all that is, as it were, consecrated and charmed by the beloved object, and operates so much the more powerfully if it adorns it, because as an ornament of that which is beautiful, it appears so much the more beautiful In the preceding verse, Solomon has for the first time addressed Shulamith by the title “bride.” Here with heightened cordiality he calls her “ sister-bride.” In this change in the address the progress ofthe story is mirrored. Why he does not say ‘N22 (my bride), has already been explained, under 8a, from the derivation of the word. Solomon’s mother might call Shulamith callathi, but he gives to the relation of affinity into which Shulamith has entered a reference to himself individually, for he says ahhothi calla (my sister-bride): she who as calla of his mother is to her a kind of daughter, is as οαἰϊᾷ in relation to himself, as it were, his sister.
Ver. 10 How fair is thy love, my sister-bride! How much better thy love than wine! And the fragrance of thy ungueuts than all spices! 11 Thy lips drop honey, my bride; Honey and milk are under thy tongue; And the fragrance of thy garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
Regarding the connection of the plwralet. D7 with the plur. of the pred., vid. at i. 20. The pred. 35. praises her love in its manifestations according to its impression on the sight; 32%, according to its experience on nearer intercourse. As in ver. 9 the same power of impression is attributed to the eyes and to the necklace, so here is intermingled praise of the beauty of her person with praise of the fragrance, the odour of the clothing of the bride; for her soul speaks out not only by her lips, she breathes forth odours also for him in her spices, which he deems more fragrant than all other odours, because he inhales, as it were, her soul along with them. ΤΕΣ, from N52, ebullire (vid. under Prov. v. 3, also Schultens), is virgin honey, ἄκοιτον (acetum, Pliny, xi. 15), 1.6. that which of itself flows from the combs (0°53%), Honey drops from the lips which he kisses; milk and honey are under the tongue which whispers to him words of pure and inward joy; cf. the contrary, Ps. cxl. 4. The last line is an echo of Gen. xxvii. 27. ney is ΠΡΟ (from on’, complicare, conuplecti) transposed (cf. mey from mo, nav from W323). As Jacob's raiment had for his old father the fragrance of a field which God had blessed, so for Solomon the garments of the faultless and pure one, fresh from the woods and mountains of the north, gave forth a heart-strengthening savour like the fragrance of Lebanon (Hos. iv. 7), viz. of its fragrant herbs and trees, chiefly of the balsamic odour of the apples of the cedar. The praise is sensuous, but it has a moral consecration. Ver. 12 A garden locked is my sister-bride; A spring locked, a fountain sealed.
ἃ (according to rule masc. Bottch. ὃ 658) denotes the garden from its enclosure; by (elsewhere mp3), the fountain (synon. 313), the waves bubbling forth (cf. Amos v. 24); and Wd, the place, as it were an eye of the earth, from which a fountain gushes forth. Luther distinguishes rightly between gan and gal; on the contrary, all the old translators (even the Venet.) render as if the word in both cases were gan. The Pasek between gan and né’ul, and between gal and nd@’ul, is designed to separate the two Nuns, as eg. at 2 Chron. ii. 9, Neh. ii. 2, the two Mems; it is the orthophonic Pasek, already described under ii. 7, which secures the independence of two similar or organically related sounds. Whether the sealed fountain (fons signatus) alludes to a definite fountain which Solomon had built for the upper city and the temple place,’ we do not now inquire. To a locked garden and spring no one has access but the rightful owner, and a sealed fountain is shut against all impurity. Thus she is closed against the world, and inaccessible to all that would disturb her pure heart, or desecrate her pure person.” All the more beautiful and the greater is the fulness of the flowers and fruits which bloom and ripen in the garden of this life, closed against the world and its lust.
Ver. 18 What sprouts forth for thee is a park of pomegranates, With most excellent fruits; Cypress flowers with nards; 14 Nard and crocus; calamus and cinnamon,
With all kinds of incense trees;
With all the chief aromatics. The common subject to all down to ver. 15 inclusive is arg (“ what sprouts for thee” = “thy plants”), as a figurative designation, borrowed from plants, of all the “ phenomena and life utterances ” (Béttch.) of her personality. “If I only knew here,” says Rocke, “ how to disclose the meaning, certainly all these flowers and fruits, in the figurative language of the Orient, in the flower-language of love, had their beautiful interpretation.” In the old German poetry, also, the phrase blwomen brechen [to break flowers] was equivalent to: to enjoy love; the flowers and fruits named are figures of all that the amata offers to the amator. Most of the plants here named are exotics; O18 (heaping around, circumvallation, enclosing) isa garden or park, especially with foreign ornamental and fragrant plants—an old Persian word, the explanation of which, after Spiegel, first given in our exposition of the Song, 1851 (from pairi = περί, and déz, R. diz, a heap), has now become common property (Justi’s Handb. der Zendsprache, p. 180) 030 8 (from 30, which corresponds to
1 Vid. Zschocke in the Tiibinger Quartalschrift, 1867, 3.? Seal, pnin, pers. muhr, is used directly in the sense of maiden-like bebaviour;
the Arab. med, praise, honour, excellence; vid. Volek under Deut, xxxlil. 13) are fructus laudum, or lautitiarum, excellent precious fruits, which in the more modern language are simply called BND (Shabbath 127), ov» Mp, all kinds of fine fruits); cf. Syr. magdo, dried fruit. Regarding "BS, vid. under i. 14; regarding “b, under i. 13; also regarding 793, under i. 12. The long vowel of ὙΌΣ corresponds to the Pers. form nard, but near to which is also nard, Indian nalada (fragrance-giving); the @ is thus only the long accent, and can therefore disappear in the plur. For pms, Gritz reads O°, roses, because the poet would not have named nard twice. The conjecture is beautiful, but for us, who believe the poem to be Solomonic, is inconsistent with the history of roses (vid. under ii. 1), and also unnecessary. The description moves forward by steps rhythmically.
D272 is the crocus stativus, the genuine Indian safran, the dried flower-eyes of which yield the safran used as a colour, as an aromatic, and also as medicine; safran is an Arab, word, and means yellow root and yellow colouring matter. The name D573, Pers. karkam, Arab. karkum, is radically Indian, Sanscr. kunkuma, MP, 8 reed (from ΠΡ, R. 3p, to rise up, viewed intrans.),! viz. sweet reed, acorus calamus, which with us now grows wild in marshes, but is indigenous to the Orient.
N23? is the laurus. cinnamomum, a tree indigenous to the east coast of Africa and Ceylon, and found later also on the Antilles, It is of the family of the lawrineae, the inner bark of which, peeled off and rolled together, is the cinnamon-bark (cannella, French cannelle); Aram. §233P, as also the Greek κιννάμωμον and κίνναμον, Lat. (e.g. in the 12th book of Pliny) cinnamomum and cinnamum, are interchanged, from 53?, probably a secondary formation from MP (like 03, whence ΠΌΞ, from 83), to which also }toa10, ὑπόστασις, and the Talm.- Targ. ὩΣΥΡ D2, an oath (cf. DP), go back, so that thus the name which was brought to the west by the Phoenicians denoted not the tree, but the reed-like form of the rolled dried bark. As “ nards” tefer to varieties of the nard, perhaps to the Indian‘and the Jamanic Spoken of by Strabo and others, so “all kinds of incense trees” tefers definitely to Indo-Arab. varieties of the incense tree and its fragrant resin; it has its name from the white and transparent seeds of this its resin (cf. Arab. /ubén, incense and benzoin, the resin of miomt or pons (which already in a remarkable way was used by Balaam, Num. xxiv. 6, elsewhere only since the time of Solomon) is the Semitized old Indian name of the aloe, agaru or aguru; that which is aromatic is the wood of the aloe-tree (aloéxylon agallochum), particularly its dried root (agallochum or lignum aloés, ξυλαλόη, according to which the Targ. here: pdx ΡΟΣ, after the phrase in Aruch) mouldered in the earth, which chiefly came from farther India.’ py, as everywhere, connects things contained together or in any way united (v. 1; ef. i 11, as Ps. lxxxvii. 4; cf. 1 Sam. xvi. 12). The concluding phrase ἊΝ "3-92 DY, cum pracstantissimis quibusque aromatibus, is ἃ poet. et cetera, witr, with the gen. of the object whose value is estimated, denotes what is of meillewre qualité; or, as the Talm. says, what is xbox, ἄλφα, i.e. number one. Ezekiel, xxvii. 22, in a similar sense, says, “ with chief (vx) of all spices.”
The panegyric returns now once more to the figure of a fountain. Ver. 15 A garden-fountain, a well of living water, And torrents from Lebanon.
The tertium compar. in ver. 12 was the collecting and sealing up; here, it is the inner life and its outward activity. A fountain in gardens (0°33, categ. pL) is put to service for the benefit of the beds of plants round about, and it has in these gardens, as it were, its proper sphere of influence. <A well of living water is one in which that which it distributes springs up from within, so that it is indeed given to it, but not without at the same time being its own true property. 5 is related, according to the Semitic wsus ἰοᾳ., to bn, as “miedergehen” (to go down) to “ weggehen” (to go away) (vid. Prov. v. 15); similarly related are (Arab.) sar, to go, and sal (in which
1 Vid. Lassen’s Ind. Alterthumsk. 1. 3834, Furrer, in Schenkel’s Bib. Lez., understands nym of the liliaceae, indigenous to Palestine as to Arabia, which is also called alog. But the drastic purgative which the succulent leaves of this plant yield is not aromatic, and the verb Snx “ to glisten,” whence he seeks to derive the name of this aloe, is not proved. Cf. besides, the Petersburg Lex. under aguru (‘* not difficult”), according to which is this name of the amyris agallocha, and the aguilaria agallocha, but of no lihaceae. The name Adlerholz (‘‘ eaglewood ”) rests on a misunderstanding of the name of the Agila tree. It is called “ Paradiesholz,” because it must have been one of the paradise trees (vid. Bereshith rabba under Gen. ii. 8). Dioskorides says of this wood: θυμιᾶται ἐντὶ χιβανωτοῦ; the Song therefore places it along with myrrh and frankincense. That which is common to the lily-aloe and the wood-aloe, is the bitter taste of the juice of the former and of the resinous wood of the latter. The Arab. name of the aloe, sabir, is also given to the lily-aloe. The proverbs: amarru min es-sabir, bitterer than the aloe, and es-sabr sabir, patience is the aloe, refer to the aloe-juice.
the letter ra is exchanged for lam, to express the softness of the liquid), to flow, whence sy/ (sél), impetuous stream, rushing water, kindred in meaning to Der, Streams which come from Lebanon have a rapid descent, and (so far as they do not arise in the snow region) the water is not only fresh, but clear as crystal. ΑἹ] these figures understood sensuously would be insipid; but understood ethically, they are exceedingly appropriate, and are easily interpreted, so that the conjecture is natural, that on the supposition of the spiritual interpretation of the Song, Jesus has this saying in His mind when He says that streams of living water shall flow “out of the belly ” of the believer, John vii. 38. The king’s praise is for Shulamith proof of his love, which seeks a response. But as she is, she thinks herself yet unworthy of him; her modesty says to her that she needs preparation for him, preparation by that blowing which is the breath of God in the natural and in the spiritual world. Ver. 16 Awake, thou North (wind), and come, thou South! Blow through my garden, cause its spices to flow—
Let my beloved come into his garden, And eat the fruits which are precious to him.
The names of the north and south, denoting not only the regions of the heavens, but also the winds blowing from these regions, are of the fem. gender, Isa. xliii. 6. The east wind, ©, is purposely not mentioned; the idea of that which is destructive and adverse is connected with it (wid. under Job xxvii. 21). The north wind brings cold till ice is formed, Sir. xlii, 20; and if the south wind blow, it is hot, Luke xii. 55. If cold and heat, coolness and sultriness, interchange at the proper time, then growth is promoted. And if the wind blow through a garden at one time from this direction and at another from that,—not so violently as when it shakes the trees of the forest, but softly and yet as powerfully as a garden can bear it,—then all the fragrance of the garden rises in waves, and it becomes like a sea of incense. The garden itself then blows, 1.6. emits odours; for (NB = the Arab. fakh, fah, cf. fawh, pl. afwah, sweet odours, fragrant plants) as in Di M5, Gen. ili. 8, the idea underlies the expression, that when it is evening the day itself blows, we. becomes cool, the causative ‘M57, connected with the object-accus. of the garden, means to make the garden breezy and fragrant. Dn is here used of the odours which, set free as it were from the plants, flow out, being carried forth by the waves of air, Shulamith wishes that in her all that is worthy of love should be fully realized. What had to be done for Esther (Esth. 11. 12) before she could be brought in to the king, Shulamith calls on the winds to accomplish for her, which are, as it were, the breath of the life of all nature, and as such, of the life-spirit, which is the sustaining background of all created things. If she is thus prepared for him who loves her, and whom she loves, he shall come into his garden and enjoy the precious fruit belonging to him. With words of such gentle tenderness, childlike purity, she gives herself to her beloved. She gives herself to him, and he has accepted her, and now celebrates the delight of possession and enjoyment. Chap. v. 1 I am come into my garden, my sister-bride;
Have plucked my myrrh with my balsam;
Have eaten my honeycomb with my honey;
Have drunk my wine with my milk—
Fat, drink, and be drunken, ye friends! If the exclamation of Solomon, 1a, is immediately connected with the words of Shulamith, iv. 16, then we must suppose that, influenced by these words, in which the ardour of love and humility express themselves, he thus in triumph exclaims, after he has embraced her in his arms as his own inalienable possession. But the exclamation denotes more than this. It supposes a union of love, such as is the conclusion of marriage following the betrothal, the God-ordained aim of sexual love within the limits fixed by morality. The poetic expression "229 ΝΞ points to the OX Ni2, used of the entrance of a man into the woman’s chamber, to which the expression (Arab.) dakhal biha (he went in with her), used of the introduction into the bride’s chamber, is compared. The road by which Solomon reached this full and entire possession was not short, and especially for his longing it was a lengthened one. He now triumphs in the final enjoyment which his ardent desire had found. A pleasant enjoyment which is reached in the way and within the limits of the divine order, and which therefore leaves no bitter fruits of self-reproach, is pleasant even in the retrospect. His words, beginning with “I am come into my garden,” breathe this pleasure in the retrospect. Ginsburg and others render incorrectly, “I am coming,” which would require the words to have been 82 "28 (737), The series of perfects beginning with ‘nxn cannot be meant otherwise than retrospectively. The “garden” is Shulamith herself, iv. 12, in the fulness of her personal and spiritual attractions, iv. 16; cf. "272,16. He may call her “my sister-bride;” the garden is then his by virtue of divine and human right, he has obtained possession of this garden, he has broken its costly rare flowers.
Ms (in the Mishna dialect the word used of plucking figs) signifies to pluck; the Aethiop. trans. ararku karbé, I have plucked myrrh; for the Aethiop. has arara instead of simply mx, ‘2¥3 is here DY deflected. While 0&3, with its plur. b’sdmim, denotes fragrance in general, and only balsam specially, basém = (Arab.) bashdm is the proper name of the balsam-tree (the Mecca balsam), amyris opobalsamum, which, according to Forskal, is indigenous in the central mountain region of Jemen (8S. Arabia); it is also called (Arab.) balsaman; the word found its way in this enlarged form into the West, and then returned in the forms jindea, iDDPbIBN, NDDIBN (Syr. afrusomo), into the Kast. Balsam and other spices were brought in abundance to King Solomon as a present by the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 10; the celebrated balsam plantations of Jericho (vid. Winer’s Real- W.), which continued to be productive till the Roman period, might owe their origin to the friendly relations which Solomon sustained to the south Arab. princess. Instead of the Indian aloe, iv. 14, the Jamanic balsam is here connected with myrrh as a figure of Shulamith’s excellences. The plucking, eating, and drinking are only interchangeable figurative descriptions of the enjoyment of love.
“Honey and milk,” says Solomon, iv. 11, “is under thy tongue.” Wis like ΠῚ), 1 Sam. xiv. 27, the comb (favus) or cells containing the honey,—a designation which has perhaps been borrowed from porous lava.’ With honey and milk “ under the tongue” wine is connected, to which, and that of the noblest kind, vii. 10, Shulamith’s palate is compared. Wine and milk together are οἰνόγαλα, which Chloe presents to Daphnis (Longus, i. 23). Solomon and his Song here hover on the pinnacle of full enjoyment; but ifone understands his figurative language as it interprets itself, it here also expresses that delight of satisfaction which the author of Ps. xix. 6a transfers to the countenance of the rising sun, in words of a chaste purity which sexual love never abandons, in so far as it is connected with esteem for a beloved wife, and with the preservation of mutual personal dignity. For this very reason the words of Solomon, la, cannot be thought of as spoken to the guests. Between iv. 16 and v. la the bridal night intervenes. The words used in la are Solomon’s morning salutation to her who has now wholly become his own. The call addressed to the guests at the feast is given forth on the second day of the marriage, which, according to ancient custom, Gen. xxix. 28, Judg. xiv. 12, was wont to be celebrated for seven days, Tob. xi. 18. The dramatical character of the Song leads to this result, that the pauses are passed over, the scenes are quickly changed, and the times appear to be continuous.
The plur. 557 Hengst. thinks always designates “love” (Liebe); thus, after Prov. vii. 28, also here: Eat, friends, drink and intoxicate yourselves in love. But the summons, inebriamini amoribus, has a meaning if regarded as directed by the guests to the married pair, but not as directed to the guests. And while we may say 07 ΠῚ, yet not ‘jt “ν᾽, for shakar has always only the accus. of a spirituous liquor after it. Therefore none of the old translators (except only the Venet.: μεθύσθητε Epwow) understood dodim, notwithstanding that elsewhere in the Song it means love, in another than a personal sense; 0%) and ‘7 are here the plur. of the elsewhere parallels 7 and ἦτ, ¢g. v. 16, according to which also (cf. on the contrary, iv. 16)) they are accentuated. Those whoare assembled are, as sympathizing friends, to participate in the pleasures of the feast. The Song of Songs has here reached its climax. A Paul would not hesitate, after Eph. v. 31 f., to extend the mystical interpretation even to this. Of the antitype of the marriage pair it is said: “For the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready ” (Rev. xix. 7); and of the antitype of the marriage guests: “ Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rey. xix. 9),
FOURTH ACT. LOVE DISDAINED BUT WON AGAIN.—Caar. V. 2-VI. 9. FIRST SCENE OF THE FOURTH ACT, V. 2-VI. 8.
In this fourth Act we are not now carried back to the time when Solomon’s relation to Shulamith was first being formed. We are not placed here amid the scenes of their first love, but of those of their married life, and of their original ardour of affection maintaining itself not without trial. This is evident from the circumstance that in the first two Acts the beloved is addressed by the title m7 (my friend, beloved), and that the third Act rises? to the title nb> (bride) and mb> ‘nnx (my sister-bride); in the fourth Act, on the other hand, along with the title ra’yaihi, we hear no longer calla, nor ahhothi
1 Among the Slovacs a bride is called malducha, “ virgin-bride,” before she has a cap placed on her head; and after that, nevesta, ‘‘ bride-spouse.” In England, bride does not designate the betrothed as such, but the betrothed when near her calla, but simply ahhothi,W—a title of address which contributes to heighten the relation, to idealize it, and give it a mystical background. We have here presented to us pictures from the life of the lovers after their marriage has been solemnized. Shulamith, having reached the goal of her longing, has a dream like that which she had (iii. 1-4) before she reached that goal. But the dreams, however they resemble each other, are yet also different, as their issues show; in the former, she seeks him, and having found him holds him fast; here, she seeks him and finds him not. That that which is related belongs to the dream-life in ch. iii, was seen from the fact that it was inconceivable as happening in real life; here that which is related is expressly declared in the introductory words as having occurred in a dream.
Ver. 2 I sleep, but my heart keeps waking— Hearken! my beloved is knocking: Open to me, my sister, my love, My dove, my perfect one; For my head is filled with dew, My locks (are) full of the drops of the night.
The partic. subst. clauses, 2a, indicate the circumstances under which that which is related in 20 occurred. In the principal sentence in hist. prose ΡΒῚΝ would be used; here, in the dramatic vivacity of the description, is found in its stead the interject. vocem= ausculta with the gen. foll., and a word designating’ state or condition added, thought of as accus. according to the Semitic syntax (like Gen. iv. 10; Jer.x. 22; cf. 1 Kings xiv. 6). Tosleep while the heart wakes signifies to dream, for sleep and distinct consciousness cannot be coexistent; the movements of thought either remain in obscurity or are projected asdreams. Y= ‘awiris formed from iy, to be awake
1 There is scarcely any other example of the husband calling his spouse “ sister ” than that found in Esth. v. 9 (Apocr.), where Ahasuerus gays to Esther: ‘‘ What is it, Esther? I am thy brother.” Still more analogous are the words of Tob. vii. 12: ““ From this time forth thou art her brother, and she is thy sister;”’ but here the relation of affinity blends itself with the marriage relationship. In Lat. soror frequently denotes a lover, in contrast to uxor. But here in the Song ahhothi calla comes in the place of callathi, which is ambiguous (‘‘ my daughter-in-law ’’).
2 pain [is knocking] is not an attribute to the determinate “111 [my beloved] which it follows, but a designation of state or condition, and thus acc., as the Beirut translation renders it: ‘‘ hear my beloved in the condition of one knocking.” On the other hand, py ΤΥ signifies ‘‘a beloved one knocking.” But ‘‘hear a beloved one knocking’ would also be expressed acc. In classical language, the designation of state, if the subst. to which it belongs is indeterminate, is placed before it, e.g. ““ at the gate stood a beloved one knocking.”
(in its root cogn. to the Aryan gar, of like import in γρηγορεῖν, ἐγείρειν), in the same way as ND = mawith from mw. The δ᾽ has here the conj. sense of “dieweil” (because), like asher in Eccles. vi. 12, viii. 15. The 1 dag., which occurs several times elsewhere (vid. under Prov. iii. 8, xiv. 10), is one of the inconsistencies of the system of punctuation, which in other instances does not double the 7; perhaps a relic of the Babylonian idiom, which was herein more accordant with the lingual nature of the 1 than the Tiberian, which treated it as a semi-guttural. M*#P, a lock of hair, from YP = MP, abscidit, follows in the formation of the idea, the analogy of V¥P, in the sense of branch, from 7¥P, desecuit; one so names a part which is removed without injury to the whole, and which presents itself conveniently for removal; cf. the oath sworn by Egyptian women, /ahajdt muksiisi,“ by the life of my separated,” te. “ οἵ my locks” (Lane, Egypt, etc., 1. 38). The word still survives in the Talmud dialect. Of a beautiful young man who proposed to become a Nazarite, Nedarim 9a says the same as the Jer. Horajoth iii. 4 of a man who was a prostitute in Rome: his locks were arranged in separate masses, like heap upon heap; in Bereshith rabba c. lxy., under Gen. xxvii. 11, 72, curly-haired, is placed over against ΠΡ, bald-headed, and the Syr. also has kausoto as the designation of locks of hair,—a word used by the Peshito as the rendering of the Heb. MiP, as the Syro-Hexap. Job to squirt, viz. blood), is in Arabic drizzling rain, in Heb. dew; the drops of the night (°0'D", from 00%, to sprinkle, to drizzle) are just drops of dew, for the precipitation of the damp air assumes this form in nights which are not so cold as to become frosty. Shulamith thus dreams that her beloved seeks admission to her. He comesa long way and at night. In the most tender words he entreats for that which he expects without delay. He addresses her, “ my sister,” as one of equal rank with himself, and familiar as a sister with a brother; “my love” (39), as one freely chosen by him to intimate fellowship; “my dove,” as beloved and prized by him or account of her purity, simplicity, and loveliness. The meaning of
1 According to the primary idea: to break that which is solid or fluid into little pieces, wherefore ὮΝ ΟἽ means also broken pieces. To this root appertains also the Arab. rashh, to trickle through, to sweat through, II. to moisten (e.g. the mouth of a suckling with milk), and the Aethiop. raséha, to be stained. Drops scattered with a sprinkling brush the Arabs call rashahdt; in the mystical writings, rashahat el-uns (dew-drops of intimacy) is the designation of sporadic gracious glances of the deity.
the fourth designation used by him, ‘NA, is shown by the Arab. tam to be “ wholly devoted,” whence teim, “one devoted” = a servant, and mutajjam, desperately in love with one. In addressing her ‘non, he thus designates this love as wholly undivided, devoting itself without evasion and without reserve. But on this occasion this love did not approve itself, at least not at once. Ver. 3 [have put off my dress, How shall I put it on again?
I have washed my feet, How shall I defile them again?
She now lies unclothed in bed. M2A3 is the χιτών worn next the body, from jn3, linen (diff. from the Arab. kuiun, cotton, whence French coton, calico = cotton-stuff). She had already washed her feet, from which it is supposed that she had throughout the day walked barefooted,—how CER, how? both times with the tone on the penult.;* cf. 128, where? i. 7) should she again put on her dress, which she had already put off and laid aside (Ὁ 78)? why should she soil (O53D8, relating to the fem. 10D), for {D208) again her feet, that had been washed clean? Shulamith is here ἜΚΑΤΕ back to the customs as well as to the home of her earlier rural life; but although she should thus have been enabled to reach a deeper and more lively consciousness of the grace of the king, who stoops to an equality with her, yet she does not meet his love with an equal requital. She is unwilling for his sake to put herself to trouble, or to do that which is disagreeable to her. It cannot be thought that such an interview actually took place; and yet what she here dreamed had not only inward reality, but also full reality. For in a dream, that which is natural to us or that which belongs to our very constitution becomes manifest, and much that is kept down during our waking hours by the power of the will, by a sense of propriety, and by the activities of life, comes to light during sleep; for fancy then stirs up the ground of our nature and brings it forth in dreams, and thus exposes us to ourselves in such a way as oftentimes, when we waken, to make us ashamed and alarmed. Thus it was with Shulamith. In the dream it was inwardly manifest that she had
1 That it has the tone on the penult., like MDD, €.g-, V- 9, is in conformity with the paragog. nature of 7. The tone, however, when the following word in close connection begins with x, goes to the ult., Esth. vii. 6. That this does not occur in ‘$y ‘DR, is explained from the circumstance that the word has the disjunctive Tifcha, But why not in ‘DX ‘a? I think it is for the sake of the rhythm. Pinsker, inl, p. 184, seeks to change the accentuation in order that the penult. accent might be on the second ‘5's, but that is not necessary. Cf. Ps. cxxxvii. 7.
lost her first love. She relates it with sorrow; for scarcely had she rejected him with these unworthy deceitful pretences when she comes to herself again.
Ver. 4 My beloved stretched his hand through the opening, And my heart was moved for him.
“sn from the verb sn, in the sense of to break through (R. 1, whence also ΤΠ, i. 10, and OW, Arab. kharam, part. broken through, e.g. of a lattice-window), signifies foramen, a hole, also caveyna (whence the name of the Troglodytes, "7, and the Haurin, (9), here the loophole in the door above (like khawkht, the little door for the admission of individuals in the street or house-door). It does not properly mean a window, but a part of the door pierced through at the upper part of the lock of the door (the door-bolt), ὙΠΠΠ is understood from the standpoint of one who is within; “by the opening from without to within,” thus “through the opening;” stretching his hand through the door-opening as if to open the door, if possible, by the pressing back of the lock from within, he shows how greatly he longed after Shulamith. And she was again very deeply moved when she perceived this longing, which she had so coldly responded to: the interior of her body, with the organs which, after the bibl. idea, are the seat of the tenderest emotions, or rather, in which they reflect themselves, both such as are agreeable and such as are sorrowful, groaned within her,—an expression of deep sympathy so common, that “ the sounding of the bowels,” Isa. lxiii. 15, an expression used, and that anthropopathically of God Himself, is a direct designation of sympathy or inner participation. The phrase here wavers between Y and ὋΨ (thus, eg. Nissel, 1662). Both forms are admissible. It is true we say elsewhere only naphshi ’dldi, ruhi ᾿αἰᾶὶ, libbi ’dlai, for the Zgo distinguishes itself from its substance {cf. System d. bibl. Psychologie, p.151 f.); medi ’aldi, instead of bi ( 313), would, however, be also explained from this, that the bowels are meant, not anatomically, but as psychical organs. But the old translators (LXX., Targ., Syr., Jerome, Venet.) rendered yy, which rests on later Ms. authority (vid. Norzi and de Rossi), and is also more appropriate: her bowels are stirred, viz. over him, 7.2. on account of him (Alkabez: 3y3). As she will now open to him, she is inwardly more ashamed, as he has come so full of love and longing to make her glad.
breaking through, and, as it were, a piercing. The mouth of a river is also called khér, because there the sea breaks into the river.
Ver. 5 I arose to open to my beloved, And my hands dropped with myrrh, And my fingers with liquid myrrh, On the handle of the bolt.
The personal pron. 8 stands without emphasis before the verb which already contains it; the common language of the people delights in such particularity. The Book of Hosea, the Ephraimite prophet’s work, is marked by such a style. 39 5, with which the parallel clause goes beyond the simple mér,is myrrh flowing over, dropping out of itself, ¢.e. that which breaks through the bark of the balsamodendron myrrha, or which flows out if an incision is made in it; myrrha stacte, of which Pliny (xii. 35) says: cui nulla praefertur, otherwise 1177 1, from 177, to gush out, to pour itself forth in rich jets. He has come perfumed as if for a festival, and the costly ointment which he brought with him has dropped on the handles of the bolts (ayn, keeping locked, after the form Ὁ ΞΡΌ, drawing on), viz. the inner bolt, which he wished to withdraw. A classical parallel is found in Lucretius, iv. 1171:
** At lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepe
Floribus et sertis operit postesque superbos Unguit amaracino”...
Bottch. here puts to Hitzig the question, “Did the shepherd, the peasant of Engedi, bring with him oil of myrrh?” Rejecting this reasonable explanation, he supposes that the Shulamitess, still in Solomon’s care, on rising up quickly dipped her hand in the oil of myrrh, that she might refresh her beloved. She thus had it near her before her bed, as a sick person her decoction. The right answer was, that the visitant by night is not that imaginary personage, but it is Solomon. She had dreamed that he stood before her door and knocked. But finding no response, he again in a moment withdrew, when it was proved that Shulamith did not requite his love and. come forth to meet it in its fulness as she ought. Ver. 6 I opened to my beloved;
I called him, and he answered me 1 Οὗ. As the disciples at Emmaus, when the Lord had vanished from the midst of them, said to one another: Did not our heart burn within us when He spake with us? so Shulamith says that when he spake, i.e. sought admission to her, she was filled with alarm, and almost terrified to death. Love-ecstasy (ἐκστῆναι, as contrast to γενέσθαι
ἐν ἑαυτῷ) is not to be here understood, for in such a state she would have flown to meet him; but a sinking of the soul, such as is described by Terence (And. I. 5. 16):
The voice of her beloved struck her heart; but in the consciousness that she had estranged herself from him, she could not openly meet him and offer empty excuses. But now she recognises it with sorrow that she had not replied to the deep impression of his loving words; and seeing him disappear without finding him, she calls after him whom she had slighted, but he answers her not. The words: “My soul departed when he spake,” are the reason why she now sought him and called upon him, and they are not a supplementary remark (Zockl.); nor is there need for the correction of the text 372, which should mean: (my soul departed) when he turned his back (Ewald), or, behind him (Hitz., Bottch.), from 133 = (Arab.) daba a, tergum vertere, praeterire—the Heb. has the word V3", the hind: r part, and as it appears, 134, to act from behind (treacherously) and «estroy, 2 Chron. xxii. 10; cf. under Gen. xxxiv. 13, but not the Kal * 3", in that Arab. signification. The meaning of POM has been hit upon by Aquila (ἔκλενεν), Symmachus (ἀπονεύσας), and Jerome (declinaverat); it signifies to turn aside, to take a different direction, as the Hithpa. Jer. xxxi. 22: to turn oneself away; cf. ΘῬΊΏΠ, turnings, bendings, vil. 2. P30 and P38 (cf. Gen. xxxii. 25), Aethiop. hakafa, Amhar, akafa (reminding us of 722, Hiph. 97), are usually compared; all of these, however, signify to “ encompass;” but Pon does not denote a moving in a circle after something, but a half circular motion away from something; so that in the Arab. the prevailing reference to fools, ahamk, does not appear to proceed from the idea of closeness, but of the oblique direction, pushed sideways. Turning himself away, he proceeded farther. In vain she sought him; she called without receiving any answer. Ὁ is the correct pausal form of ‘229, vid. under Ps. exviii. 5. But something worse than even this seeking and calling in vain happened to her. Ver. 7 The watchmen who go about in the city found me, They beat me, wounded me;
She sought her beloved, not “in the midbar” (open field), nor “ in the kepharim” (villages), but 13, “in the city,’—a circumstance which is fatal to the shepherd-hypothesis here, as in the other dream. There in the city she is found by the watchmen who patrol the city, and have their proper posts on the walls to watch those who approach the city and depart from it (cf. Isa. Ixii. 6). These rough, regardless men,—her story returns at the close like a palindrome to those previously named,—who judge only according to that which is external, and have neither an eye nor a heart for the sorrow of a loving soul, struck (737, from 73), to pierce, hit, strike) and wounded (88, R. yp, to divide, to inflict wounds in the flesh) the royal spouse as a common woman, and so treated her, that, in order to escape being made a prisoner, she was constrained to leave her upper robe in their hands (Gen. xxxix. 12). This upper robe, not the veil which at iv. 1, 3 we found was called tsammaé, is called TN, — Aben Ezra compares with it the Arab. ridd, a plaid-like over-garment, which was thrown over the shoulders and veiled the upper parts of the body. But the words have not the same derivation. The ridé has its name from its reaching downward,—probably from the circumstance that, originally, it hung down to the feet, so that one could tread on it; but the (Heb.) r*did (in Syr. the dalmatica of the deacons), from 171, Hiph., 1 Kings vi. 32, Targ., Talm., Syr., 1, to make broad and thin, as expanswm, 1.6. a thin and light upper robe, viz. over the cuttonéth, 3a. The LXX. suitably translates it here and at Gen. xxiv. 65 (hatstsdiph, from tsa’aph, to lay together, to fold, to make double or many-fold) by θέριστρον, a summer overdress. A modern painter, who represents Shulamith as stripped naked by the watchmen, follows his own sensual taste, without being able to distinguish between tunica and palliwm; for neither Luther, who renders by schileter (veil), nor Jerome, who has palliwm (cf. the saying of Plautus: tunica propior pallio est), gives any countenance to such a freak of imagination. The city watchmen tore from off her the upper garment, without knowing and without caring to know what might be the motive and the aim of this her nocturnal walk.