2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
2 I will rise H6965 now, and go about H5437 the city H5892 in the streets, H7784 and in the broad ways H7339 I will seek H1245 him whom my soul H5315 loveth: H157 I sought H1245 him, but I found H4672 him not.
2 `I said', I will rise now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
2 -- Pray, let me rise, and go round the city, In the streets and in the broad places, I seek him whom my soul hath loved! -- I sought him, and I found him not.
2 I will rise now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the broadways Will I seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
2 I will get up now, and go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I didn't find him.
2 I will get up now and go about the town, in the streets and in the wide ways I will go after him who is the love of my soul: I went after him, but I did not see him.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the day time, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life. I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
For thou art the God of my strength: why dost thou cast me off? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles. Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: yea, upon the harp will I praise thee, O God my God. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.
Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah. And I said, This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,
And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Song of Solomon 3
Commentary on Song of Solomon 3 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
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 have withdrawn from her; she had lost the feeling of his nearness, and was not able to recover it. לילות is neither here nor at Song of Solomon 3:8 necessarily the categ. plur. 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.
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.
How could this night-search, with all the strength of love, be consistent with the modesty of a maiden? It is thus a dream which she relates. 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? 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. 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 Chatef-Pathach of ואס , vid ., Baer's Genesis , p. 7. שׁוקים is the plur of שׁוּק (= shavḳ ), as שׁורים of שׁוּר (= shavr ); the root-word שוק (Arab. shaḳ ) signifies to press on, to follow after continuously; (Arab.) suwaḳ designates perhaps, originally, the place to which one drives cattle for sale, as in the desert; (Arab.) sawaḳ designates the place to which one drives cattle for drink (Wetzst.). The form אבקשׁה is without the Daghesh , as are all the forms of this verb except the imper.; the semi-guttural nature of the Koph has something opposing the simple Sheva .
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?”
Here also (as in Song of Solomon 3:2) there is wanting before the question such a phrase as, “and I asked them, saying:” the monologue relates dramatically. If she described an outward experience, then the question would be a foolish one; for how could she suppose that the watchmen, who make their rounds in the city (Epstein, against Grהtz, points for the antiquity of the order to Psalms 127:1; Isaiah 62:6; cf. Isaiah 21:11), could have any knowledge of her beloved! But if she relates a dream, it is to be remembered that feeling and imagination rise higher than reflection. It is in the very nature of a dream, also, that things thus quickly follow one another without fixed lineaments. 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; an occurrence without probable external reality, although not without deep inner truth:
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.
כּמעט = paululum , here standing for a sentence: it was as a little that I passed, etc. Without שׁ , it would be paululum transii ; with it, paululum fuit quod transii , without any other distinction than that in the latter case the paululum is more emphatic. Since Shulamith relates something experienced earlier, אחזתּי is not fitly rendered by teneo , but by tenui ; and ארפּנּוּ dna ;iune לאו , not by et non dimittam eum , but, as the neg. of וארפנו , et dimisi eum , - not merely et non dimittebam eum , but et non dimisi eum . In Genesis 32:27 [26], we read the cogn. שׁלּח , which signifies, to let go (“let me go”), as הרפּה , to let loose, to let free. It is all the same whether we translate, with the subjective colouring, donec introduxerim , or, with the objective, donec introduxi ; in either case the meaning is that she held him fast till she brought him, by gentle violence, into her mother's house. With בּית there is the more definite parallel חדר lellar , which properly signifies ( vid ., under Song of Solomon 1:4), recessus , penetrale ; with אמּי , the seldom occurring (only, besides, at Hosea 2:7) הורה , part.f. Kal of הרה fo la , to conceive, be pregnant, which poetically, with the accus., may mean parturire or parere . In Jacob's blessing, Genesis 49:26, as the text lies before us, his parents are called הורי ; just as in Arab. ummâni , properly “my two mothers,” may be used for “my parents;” in the Lat. also, parentes means father and mother zeugmatically taken together.
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.
We are thus obliged apparently to think of the daughters of Jerusalem as being present during the relation of the dream. But since Shulamith in the following Act is for the first time represented as brought from her home to Jerusalem, it is more probable that she represented her experience to herself in secret, without any auditors, and feasting on the visions of the dream, which brought her beloved so near, that she had him by herself alone and exclusively, that she fell into such a love-ecstasy as Song of Solomon 2:7; and pointing to the distant Jerusalem, deprecates all disturbance of this ecstasy, which in itself is like a slumber pervaded by pleasant dreams. 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. 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 N.T., will not be able to read the two scenes from Shulamith's experience without finding therein a mirror of the intercourse of the soul with God in Christ, and cherishing thoughts such, e.g. , as are expressed in the ancient hymn:
Quando tandem venies, meus amor?
Propera de Libano, dulcis amor!
Clamat, amat sponsula: Veni, Jesu,
Dulcis veni Jesu !