Song of Solomon 4:2

The A.V. has supplied a great deal in the first clause, and has diverted the comparison thereby from the whiteness to the evenness of the teeth. The comparison is really this, Thy teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep which have come up from the washing, i.e. they are white as a flock of sheep in their most spotlessly white condition. The smoothness of the teeth may also be referred to in the simile.

whereof every one beareth twins, and none is barren among them There is a play on words here such as Orientals love. -All of whom" is shekkullâm, and -a barren," or rather, -a childless one," is shakkûlâh. In the R.V. margin the clause is translated, which are all of them in pairs, and undoubtedly that is the idea meant to be conveyed. The teeth run accurately in pairs, the upper corresponding to the lower, and none of them is wanting. But the Hiph. participle math"îmôthcan hardly mean anything, according to O.T. usage, but -producing twins." Cp. the word for -producing a firstborn" in Jeremiah 4:31. Consequently the leading commentators retain this meaning. It would also seem to be demanded by the use of the word shakkûlâh, -bereaved," for that too implies that the individual teeth are compared to mothers. The only thing in favour of the R.V. margin is that in the Talmud this same Hiph. is used in the meaning -to be twins." (Cp. Levy, Neuhebr. Wörterb. IV. 622.) As the language of the Song has in some respects affinities with late Heb., the word may have the same signification here. Certainly, if that view be not taken, the last clause of the verse can be only a rhetorical expansion of the simile, to indicate that the sheep to which the teeth are compared are in full health.