Song of Solomon 8:1. _O that thou_wert _as my brother As_should probably be omitted, as the accidental repetition of the last letter of the preceding word. She wishes that her lover were her brother. That she should wish that being her lover he were in the same position in regard to her as a brother... [ Continue Reading ]
Song of Solomon 7:7 Chap. Song of Solomon 8:4. The King and the Shepherdess the last Assault We may suppose that after her attendants have completed the Shulammite's adornment, and have finished their fulsome praises of her beauty, she receives a new visit from the king. In Song of Solomon 7:7-9 he... [ Continue Reading ]
The bride thinks with delight of the close familiar intercourse she would in that case have had with him. who _would instruct me_ The verb here may be either 3rd pers. sing. fem. as the A.V. takes it, or 2nd pers. sing. masc. as the Vulgate and Targum take it. In the latter case the translation wou... [ Continue Reading ]
The bride here repeats in other words what she has already spoken of in Song of Solomon 8:1, and losing herself in the anticipation of that which she had before regarded only as a possibility, she drops into the use of the third personal pronoun in her rapture, though she has been addressing her lov... [ Continue Reading ]
_I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem_ Rather, as in R.V., I ADJURE YOU … NOR AWAKEN LOVE, UNTIL IT PLEASE. This verse is a repetition of Song of Solomon 2:7 and Song of Solomon 3:5 with the difference that, instead of _im = that … not_, we have here _mah = why_. The A.V. translates this _mah_as -... [ Continue Reading ]
_the wilderness_ i.e. the uncultivated open pasture lands round the village. This again is an insurmountable difficulty for Budde, as the same word in Song of Solomon 3:6 was. Siegfried boldly tries to get over the difficulty by saying that the threshing-floor lay in the _midhbâr_, and in Wetzstein'... [ Continue Reading ]
Song of Solomon 8:5-7. The Return in the Might of Love The scene depicted in these verses is the return of the Shulammite with her lover to the village. As they draw near she leans upon him in weariness, and they are observed by some of the villagers, who ask the question in Song of Solomon 8:5 _a_... [ Continue Reading ]
As seals are not impressed upon the heart, nor upon the arm, we must understand here the ring seals which were bound round the neck with a cord (Genesis 38:18) and carried in the bosom, or which were worn on the finger (Jeremiah 22:24). This last passage interprets the bride's request. She wishes to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it_ Better, _neither can rivers drown it_. The word translated _drown_may also mean _sweep away_(cp. Isaiah 28:17): but as love has just been compared to a fire, and the waters in the first clause are said not to be able to _quench_it, it... [ Continue Reading ]