Song of Solomon 6:2

The bride gives them an evasive answer, becoming jealous perhaps of their eager interest. She simply says he has gone forth to his usual haunts. Budde would strike out Song of Solomon 6:1, on the ground that the garden, the beds of spices, and the lilies are figures for the bride's person, as similar natural objects are in Song of Solomon 4:12 f., Song of Solomon 5:13; Song of Solomon 2:16; Song of Solomon 5:1. Here they cannot be that, since the bride is confessedly describing an absent lover, and they must consequently on his theory be put in by someone who did not understand the other references. But this curious reversion to the allegorical interpretation of the Song in a physical sense, by the opponents of allegorical interpretation in a spiritual sense, must be rejected. In all the passages referred to, save Song of Solomon 2:16, which must be taken literally, the simile or metaphor is fully stated; the bride is like so and so, or her cheeks are so and so. No one, consequently, could possibly misunderstand them. Here the absence of any indication of simile makes the literal interpretation necessary, and so understood these verses have a perfectly natural and appropriate meaning. The similes referred to are taken in the first instance from surrounding nature, and when the Shulammite's lover disappears it would be among these surroundings he would disappear. Taken simply as they stand, the words mean that he has gone back for a time to his ordinary occupations, and she thinks of him as gathering a garland for her as he had often done before. Further, the expression lilqôt shôshannîmis in favour of this view. -To pluck lilies" would be a very strange expression if lilies meant -lips" here.

to feed i.e. -to feed the flock."