Commentaires bibliques

Chap. Song of Solomon 1:11. The song of songs, which is Solomon’s] For the superscription, which probably comes from a later hand than that of the author, see Introduction, § 1, p. ix.

Chap. Song of Solomon 1:2-8. In the King’s Household

The first scene from the life of the heroine called the Shulammite is contained in these verses. She has been brought by the king’s command into his chambers (Song of Solomon 1:4). The scene is consequently in some royal residence, probably at Jerusalem, and we have present, the Shulammite, the Jerusalem ladies of the court, and perhaps also Solomon. The ladies of the court sing the praises of the king as the object of their love, and seek to rouse the Shulammite also to admiration of him (2, 3, 4b). She, rapt in dreams of her absent lover, pays no heed at first, but murmurs a wish that he might come and rescue her (4a). Then, becoming conscious of her surroundings, she turns to address the ladies of the court (5, 6). Again she falls to musing, and asks her shepherd lover where he may be found (7). The ladies answer ironically (8).

2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth] It may be doubted whether this is spoken by the Shulammite of her absent lover, or by one of the ladies of the court, of Solomon, In favour of the former view, there is the likelihood that the heroine would first speak, and the change of pronoun in Song of Solomon 1:3, if there be no change in the persons speaking, is abrupt. But the change of pronoun would not be altogether unnatural in any language if the person spoken of were suddenly seen approaching after the first clause had been uttered. Nor even if he were not present at all would the change be impossible; for in passionate poetry the imagination continually vivifies and gives life to its conceptions by representing the object of affection as present, though actually absent. Perhaps the view that the king is seen approaching and that one of the court ladies speaks is preferable. In that case it would be his kisses that would be referred to.

for thy love is better than wine] i.e. thy caresses are better than wine. The word dôdhîm is properly ‘manifestations of kindness and love,’ but it also means love. Here the former is the better translation.

3. Because of the savour of thy good ointments] Lit. ‘For fragrance thy ointments are good,’ i.e. as R.V. Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance. This clause is a continuance of the praise begun in Song of Solomon 1:2, not the reason for it. The particle translated because of in the A.V. stands here in its common sense of as to, or with regard to. Ointments means unguents or perfumes.

the virgins] Or maidens. There is probably here a reference to the Shulammite, for another word would probably have been used had the women of the hareem been meant. So noble is Solomon that even maidens as unsophisticated as she loved him. Or the reference may be to young women who were about to be taken into the hareem, hardly to slave girls already there, as Grätz suggests.

4. Draw me, we will run after thee] Better, Draw me after thee, that we may run. This rendering is contrary to the Heb. accents, which connect after thee with run, but in that case it is difficult to see who are meant by we. By taking the words as suggested we get the maiden and her deliverer as subjects, and the next clause then does not require to be taken as a hypothetical clause, as it must be if after thee is connected with run. It is simply a statement of the dangerous position from which she calls upon her lover to deliver her.

we will be glad and rejoice in thee] These are the words of the court ladies, continuing the speech of Song of Solomon 1:3.

we will remember thy love more than wine] Rather, we will celebrate thy caresses more than wine. Nazkîrâh means literally ‘to commemorate,’ ‘to keep in memory,’ but this easily passes over into the signification of praising or celebrating. Cp. Psalm 20:7, “we will make mention of the name of Jehovah.” In 1 Chronicles 16:4 the word is used absolutely, in the meaning ‘to celebrate’ (R.V.), and this is perhaps the best rendering here.

the upright] Rather, in uprightness, R.V. margin, or rightly, R.V. Rightly do they, viz. the maidens, Song of Solomon 1:3, love thee.

5. Here the Shulammite, under the inquisitive glances of the court ladies, who probably desire to see whether they have in any degree accomplished their purpose of rousing her admiration for the king, remembers her rustic appearance, and explains that the swarthy colour which is so different from theirs, is not natural or permanent, and asserts her equality in beauty.

I am black] Better, swart. The word denotes here, not blackness as of a or of a horse (cp. Zechariah 6:2; Zechariah 6:6), but the ruddy or brown hue of sunburning; though with poetic exaggeration the speaker compares herself to the Bedouin tents of camel’s hair, for blackness, and to the brilliantly coloured curtains of Solomon’s tent, for beauty.

Kedar] i.e. black, was the name of a tribe of nomads whose eponymous ancestor was (Genesis 25:13) a son of Ishmael. They wandered in the Arabian desert towards Babylonia, and are called Kidru in the cuneiform inscriptions.

6. because I am black] The word for black here is a diminutive of the former word, and would be better translated swarthy.

the sun hath looked upon me] Rather, hath scorched me (R.V.).

my mother’s children] Lit. sons. These are not, as Ewald and others conjecture, her step-brothers. They are rather her full brothers, and the pathos of her case is deepened by that fact. Even her own brothers, in their anger, set her menial tasks. From there being mention only of her mother and her brothers, and from the authority her brothers exercised over her, we may infer that her father was dead. This is one of the undesigned touches which compel us to assume a connected story of some kind as a background for the book. Those who deny any connexion between the songs and assert that they are only the fragments of a professional singer’s répertoire cannot satisfactorily explain this reference,

but mine own vineyard have I not kept] i.e. she did not take fitting care of her own beauty; or it may be that the reference is to the carelessness which had brought her into her present danger. The former is more probable since she affirms most strongly (cp. Song of Solomon 8:10; Song of Solomon 8:12) that in the sense of her person she has kept her ‘vineyard.’

7. where thou feedest, &c.] Rather, where thou wilt pasture (thy flock), where thou wilt make (them) rest at noon. ‘Feedest’ is in English ambiguous, but the Heb. word is not. Cp. Genesis 37:16, “Tell me, I pray thee, where they feed (their flocks).”

as one that turneth aside] Vulg. ne vagari incipiam. The LXX, ὡς περιβαλλομένη = as one veiling herself, is more correct. The Heb. of the text is kě ‛ôtyâh, which is the participle fem. Qal for the usual ‛ôtâh (but perhaps it should be ‛ôtîyyâh; cp. Ges. Kautzsch Gramm. § 75 v) of the verb âtâh = to fold, or pack together; cp. Isaiah 22:17, “He will wrap thee up closely” (R.V.); and Jeremiah 43:12, “He shall array himself” (literally wrap himself) “with the land of Egypt”; then ‘to veil’ or ‘cover,’ and this must be its meaning here; like one veiling herself. But what is the significance of her veiling herself? Delitzsch and others understand the reference here to be to the custom of harlots to disguise themselves, as Tamar, Genesis 38:15, “He thought her to be an harlot, for she had covered her face,” but there is no plausible reason given why she should veil herself, especially if this interpretation could be put upon her doing so. Others, taking the text to be correct, make the meaning to be ‘as one mourning or forsaken,’ then ‛ôtyâh must have become a technical term from which the original meaning had almost wholly been stripped. The Syriac, the Vulgate, and Symm. apparently read, ‘wanderer,’ transposing the letters and making ‛ôtîyyâh into tô‛ iyyâh, the participle of the verb ‘to wander.’ Archdeacon Aglen’s suggestion in Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers, that as the word ‛âtâh in Isaiah 22:17 is given the meaning of ‘erring,’ or ‘wandering about,’ by the Rabbinic commentators, probably the idea they had in their mind was that a person with the head wrapped up has difficulty in finding his way, and thus, even without any transposition of the letters, the word might come to be translated ‘wandering,’ is interesting and plausible. He would translate as one blindfold. This seems the best rendering.

7, 8. Song of Solomon 1:7 is spoken by the Shulammite, asking her lover where she will find him at noon, and Song of Solomon 1:8 is the mocking comment of the daughters of Jerusalem. Martineau, indeed, supposes that the lover actually appears here, at the king’s residence in Jerusalem, and she asks him where she can find him feeding his flocks. But that seems unmeaning if he was a shepherd of En-gedi, as Martineau supposes; and in any case, he would not be feeding his flocks in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. Budde supposes that this is a song put into the mouth of the newly married couple, in order that the marriage, which really was a mere matter of arrangement, should be made to appear to be the result of previous affection. This, therefore, is an account of a lovers’ meeting before marriage. But if the universal custom was to arrange marriages in this way it seems obvious that no one would wish to make the thing appear otherwise, in fact it would be a breach of the convenances to hint at such a thing. There seems no alternative but to suppose that the speaker is here musing upon her absent lover and asks aloud where she could find him. She longs to go to seek him. Some however take the two verses to be a reference to the past, while Oettli supposes them to be an interlude brought in to shew who the two lovers are.

8. by the footsteps of the flock] i.e. hard on the footsteps, in the very tracks of the sheep, until she reaches the place where the shepherds’ tents are set up, and there she will find him.