Song of Solomon 8:5

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's account the marriage procession is said to move from the chaff-barn towards the threshing-floor. But unfortunately, the procession, if procession it be, is described as coming fromthe midhbâr. Moreover, to make the threshing-floor a part of the midhbâris unheard of.

leaning upon her beloved i.e. she was supporting herself as weary with the journey.

I raised thee The pronouns theeand thyin the last clauses of this verse are masculine in the Massoretic text, and consequently make the Shulammite address the bridegroom. But the Syriac, which is followed by many commentators, reads the pronouns as feminine. The question is one of vowels, as the consonantal text is the same for both readings, and in all probability the feminine suffixes are correct, for no one's mother but the bride's has hitherto been spoken of, and the words are better suited to the bridegroom than to the bride. The clause should be rendered as in the R.V. I awakened thee. The lover, as he approaches the maiden's home, points out places that are memorable to him. Under this apple tree he had, perhaps, kissed her awake. Cp. Tennyson's Sleeping Beauty. This is better than, -here I first aroused thy love."

there i.e. yonder, not under the apple tree, but in the house they are approaching.

thy mother brought thee forth: there she broughtthee forththat bare thee Better, as in the R.V., thy mother was in travail with thee, there was she in travail that brought thee forth.