Song of Solomon 1:13

A bundle From Isaiah 3:20 we learn that Israelite women were accustomed to carry perfume boxes. The bundle of myrrh here would seem to be something of that kind, probably a small bag with myrrh resin in it.

myrrh Heb. môr. It is the Balsamodendron myrrhaof botanists, a low, thorny, ragged-looking tree, something like an acacia. It is found in Arabia Felix. "A viscid white liquid oozes from the bark when punctured, which rapidly hardens when exposed to the air, and becomes a sort of gum, which in this simple state is the myrrh of commerce. The wood and bark emit a pungent aromatic odour." Tristram, Nat. Hist. of Bible, p. 365.

he shall lie all night Rather, as R.V., that lieth. The clause is the ordinary relative sentence with the relative pron. suppressed, by which the attributive participle in English is expressed in Heb., and the translation should be, a bundle of myrrh lying all night between my breasts is my love to me, i.e. the thought of him abides with her and refreshes her heart as a perfume bag of myrrh would do. Cp. Shelley,

"Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed,

And so thy thoughts when thou art gone

Love itself shall slumber on."

The translation of the A.V. is refuted by the parallelism. In the second half of Song of Solomon 1:14, in the vineyards of En-gediis an attribute of the cluster of henna-flowers, and so in Song of Solomon 1:13, lying between my breastsis an attribute of the bundle of myrrh.