SONG OF SOLOMON
LESSON TWO
Song 3:1-5
3:1 A Troubled Night
THE SHULAMITE
By night on my bed I sought the one I love;
I sought him, but I did not find him.
2 "I will rise now," I said,
"And go about the city;
In the streets and in the squares
I will seek the one I love."
I sought him, but I did not find him.
3 The watchmen who go about the city found me;
I said,
"Have you seen the one I love?"
4 Scarcely had I passed by them,
When I found the one I love.
I held him and would not let him go,
Until I had brought him to the house of my mother,
And into the chamber of her who conceived me.
5 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles or by the does of the field,
Do not stir up nor awaken love
Until it pleases.
NKJV
‘Upon my couch at night [i.e. in a dream.]
I sought the one I love –
I sought, but found him not.’
“I must rise and roam the town,
Through the streets and through the squares;
I must seek the one I love.”
I sought but found him not.
3b – I met the watchmen [lit. “The watchmen met me.”]
Who patrol the town.
“Have you seen the one I love?”
‘Scarcely had I passed them
When I found the one I love.
I held him fast; I would not let him go
Till I brought him to my mother’s house,
To the chamber of her who conceived me’
‘I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem,
By gazelles or by hinds of the field:
Do not wake or rouse
Love until it please!’ The Song of Songs 3:1-5 Tanakh Hebrew Text
SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE
[General Information - 3:1-6: The woman searches for her lover]. This passage may be interpreted as a dream scene, although it is sufficiently ambiguous to allow other interpretations as well. The dreamlike quality of the episode, found here and at the beginning of chapter 5, is one of the many poetic techniques employed in the Song. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:2: I sought, but found him not: The desperate tone here contrasts with the playful, hide-and-go-seek mode of the previous chapter. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:4: My mother’s house: Motherhood is a central image in the Song (cf. 3:4, 11; 6:9; 8:1, 5). Here, the mother represents security and support for the lovers. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:6-5:1 THE SHULAMITE AND HER BELOVED, TOGTHER
The procession of Solomon’s court to Jerusalem (Introversion and Repeated Alternation)
J-1 3:6-11. The inhabitants of Jerusalem see the procession approaching. Remark of one (verse 6), of
Another (verses 7, 8); of a third (verses 9, 10); of a fourth (verse 11).
K L-1 4:1-5. The Beloved (shepherd), who has followed the court, comes to Jerusalem to rescue the
Shulamite. He obtains an interview, and again expresses his delight in her. [Contrast
His Modesty with Solomon’s coarse flatteries in 6:4-10, and 7:1-9.]
M-1 4:6. The Shulamite proposes to return, referring to 2:17.
L-2 4:7-16-The Beloved (shepherd) immediately proffers assistance, emboldened by her beauty
(Verses 7-11) and by her faithfulness (verses 12-16-)
M-2 4: -16. The Shulamite declares that all she has is for his pleasure.
L-3 5:1-. The Beloved (shepherd) suitably responds: “I am coming.”
J-2 5:-1. The daughters of Jerusalem (some of the court-ladies) encourage them and urge them on.
The Companion Bible by Baxter
Song 3:1
[By night on my bed I sought him] It appears that the bridegroom only saw the bride by night: that on the night referred to here he did not come as usual. The bride, troubled on the account, rose and sought him; inquired of the city guards, and continued to seek until at last she found him, and brought him to her apartment, Song 3:2-4. (Adam Clarke Commentary)
Song 3:4
[Into my mother's house] The women in the East have all separate apartments, into, which no person ever attempts to enter except the husband. We find Isaac bringing Rebecca into his mother's tent, when he made her his wife, Genesis 24:67. What is here related appears to refer to the third night of the nuptials. (Adam Clarke Commentary)
Song 3:5
[I charge you] The same adjuration as before, Song 2:7.
(From Adam Clarke's Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)
SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE
SECOND SCENE OF THE SECOND ACT 3:1-5
In the first scene, Shulamith relates what externally happened to her one day when the evening approached. In this second scene, she now relates what she inwardly experienced when the night came. She does not indeed say that she dreamed it; but that it is a dream is seen from this, that that, which is related cannot be represented as an external reality. But it at once appears as an occurrence that took place during sleep.
3:1 On my bed in the nights
I sought him whom my soul loveth:
I sought him, and found him not.
She does not mean to say that she sought him beside herself on her couch; for how could that be of the modest one, whose home-bringing is first described in the next act-she could and might miss him there neither waking nor sleeping. The commencement is like Job 33:15. She was at night on her couch, when a painful longing seized her: the beloved of her soul appeared to have forsaken her, to withdraw from her; she had lost the feeling of his nearness, and was not able to recover it. The meaning may also be that this pain, arising from a sense of being forgotten, always returned upon her for several nights through: she became distrustful of his fidelity; but the more she apprehended that she was no longer loved, the more ardent became her longing, and she arose to seek for him who had disappeared.
(Keil and Delitzsch Commentary)
2 So I will arise, then, and go about the city,
The markets, and the streets;
I will seek him whom my soul loveth! -
I sought him, and found him not.
(1) How could this night-search, with all the strength of love, be consistent with the modesty of a maiden?
(2) It is thus a dream, which she relates.
(3) And if the beloved of her soul were a shepherd, would she seek him in the city, and not rather without, in the field or in some village?
(4) No; the beloved of her soul is Solomon; and in the dream, Jerusalem, his city is transported close to the mountains of her native home.
(5) The resolution expressed by "I will arise, then," is not introduced by "then I said," or any similar phrase: the scene consists of a monologue, which dramatically represents that which is experienced. Regarding the second act. (Keil and Delitzsch Commentary)
Song 3:3
Shulamith now relates what she further experienced when, impelled by love-sorrow, she wandered through the city:
3 The watchmen who go about in the city found me:
"Have ye seen him whom my soul loveth?"
SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE
3:3
(1) Here also (as in v. 2) there is a wanting before the question such a phrase as, "and I asked them, saying:" the monologue relates dramatically.
(2) If she described an outward experience, then the question would be a foolish one;
(3) For how could she suppose that the watchmen, who make their rounds in the city, could have any knowledge of her beloved!
(4) But if she relates a dream, it is to be remembered that feeling and imagination rise higher than reflection.
(5) It is in the very nature of a dream, also, that things thus quickly follow one another without fixed lineaments.
(6) This also, that having gone out by night, she found in the streets him whom she sought, is a happy combination of circumstances formed in the dreaming soul;
(7) An occurrence without probable external reality, although not without deep inner truth:
(Keil and Delitzsch Commentary)
4 Scarcely had I passed from them,
When I found him whom my soul loveth.
I seized him, and did not let him go
Until I brought him into the house of my mother,
And into the chamber of her that gave me birth.
The meaning is that she held him fast till she brought him, by gentle violence, into her mother's house.
(Keil and Delitzsch Commentary)
Song 3:5
The closing words of the monologue are addressed to the daughters of Jerusalem.
5 I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
By the gazelles or the hinds of the field,
That ye awake not and disturb not love
Till she pleases.
(a) We are thus obliged apparently to think of the daughters of Jerusalem as being present during the relation of the dream.
(b) But since Shulamith in the following Act is for the first time represented as brought from her home to Jerusalem,
(c) It is more probable that she represented her experience to herself in secret, without any auditors, and feasting on the visions of the dream,
(d) Which brought her beloved so near, that she had him by herself alone and exclusively, that she fell into such a love-ecstasy as Acts 2:7;
(e) And pointing to the distant Jerusalem, deprecates all disturbance of this ecstasy, which in itself is like a slumber pervaded by pleasant dreams.
(f) In two monologues dramatically constructed, the poet has presented to us a view of the thoughts and feelings by, which the inner life of the maiden was moved in the near prospect of becoming a bride and being married.
SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE
3:5
(g) Whoever reads the Song in the sense in which it is incorporated with the canon, and that, too, in the historical sense fulfilled in the New Testament, will not be able to read the two scenes from Shulamith's experience without finding therein a mirror of the interrelationship of the soul with God in Christ, and cherishing the thoughts. (Keil & Delitzsch Commentary)
Song 3:6-11
THE SHULAMITE
6 Who is this coming out of the wilderness?
Like pillars of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
With all the merchant's fragrant powders?
7 Behold, it is Solomon's couch,
With sixty valiant men around it,
Of the valiant of Israel.
8 They all hold swords,
Being expert in war.
Every man has his sword on his thigh
Because of fear in the night.
9 Of the wood of Lebanon
Solomon the King
Made himself a palanquin:
10 He made its pillars of silver,
Its support of gold,
Its seat of purple,
Its interior paved with love
By the daughters of Jerusalem.
11 Go forth, O daughters of Zion,
And see King Solomon with the crown
With which his mother crowned him
On the day of his wedding,
The day of the gladness of his heart.
NKJV
‘Who is she that comes up from the desert?
Like columns of smoke,
In clouds of myrrh and frankincense,
Of all the powders of the merchant?’
‘There is Solomon’s couch,
Encircled by sixty warriors
Of the warriors of Israel,’
‘All of them trained [Cf. Akkadian ahazu, “to learn.”] in warfare,
Skilled in battle,
Each with sword on thigh
Because of terror by night.’
SONG OF SOLOMON CHAPTER THREE
‘King Solomon made him a palanquin
Of wood from Lebanon.’
‘He made its posts of silver,
Its back [meaning of the Hebrew here is uncertain] of gold,
Its seat of purple wool.
Within, it was decked with [love
By the maidens of Jerusalem emendation yields “ebony, / O maidens of Jerusalem!”]’
‘O maidens of Zion, go forth
And gaze upon King Solomon
Wearing the crown that his mother
Gave him on his wedding day,
On his day of bliss.’ Song of Songs 3:6-11 Tanakh Hebrew Text
3:6-11: Vision of royal wedding procession. This section consists of two parallel descriptions:
1. The first (vv. 6-8) employs the language of war and has an undertone of violence;
2. The second (vv. 9-11) employs the language of royalty and romance. [JSB]
3:6: Who is she, or what is this? The feminine form of the pronoun (she) probably refers to Solomon’s couch. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:9-11: Solomon made…? This vv. May be among the oldest parts of the Song. Palanquin, a covered chair that was set on poles and carried on the shoulders of four men. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:10: Silver…gold…purple wool, symbols of wealth and royalty. They were also used in the construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus chapter 26). Consequently, the rabbinic commentators interpreted these vv. In reference to the Tabernacle. [Jewish Study Bible]
3:11: Wearing the crown: Grooms wore crowns in the Second Temple period. After the destruction of the Second Temple the practice was abolished as a sign of mourning. On his wedding day: Rabbinic interpreters understood this as a reference to the giving of Torah at Mt. Sinai. The idea that God and Israel were married at Sinai appears in Song of Songs Rabbah, other midrashic text, and liturgical texts from the rabbinic and medieval periods. [Jewish Study Bible]
Song 3:6
[Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness]
a. Going to Egypt was called descending or going down, coming from it was termed coming up.
b. The bride, having risen, goes after her spouse to the country, and the clouds of incense arising from her palanquin seemed like pillars of smoke;