Song of Solomon 4:15

a fountain of gardens, &c. Some take these words as vocatives, but more probably thou artis to be understood as in R.V. Budde would read -my garden" (gannî) for -gardens" (gannîm), and would translate, "The fountain of my garden is a well of living waters." This is supported by the reading of the LXX, for they, from their having πηγὴ κήπου καὶ would seem to have read not gannîmbut gannô, i.e. -his garden," the Heb. letter wawbeing the sign for both hisand and. But that would give no meaning here. The probability therefore is that the reading the Greek translators really had before them was gannî, iand obeing hardly distinguishable in the writing then in use. Moreover, it would give a better arrangement of the text. In Song of Solomon 4:12 the bride is compared to a garden and a spring. Song of Solomon 4:13-14 expand and particularise the garden simile. By Budde's reading Song of Solomon 4:15 becomes a similar expansion of the spring simile. We should then read, thou art the fountain of my garden, a well of living, i.e. flowing, waters, and rushing Lebanon streams. She is the source of all the joy and refreshment of his existence, just as a fountain is the cause of all the coolness and shade of the garden which it waters.