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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 1:4 - 1:4
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The second pentastich also begins with a solo:
4 Draw me, so will we run after thee.
All recent interpreters (except Böttcher) translate, like Luther, “Draw me after thee, so we run.” Thus also the Targ., but doubtfully: Trahe nos post te et curremus post viam bonitatis tuae. But the accentuation which gives Tiphcha to מָשְׁ requires the punctuation to be that adopted by the Peshito and the Vulg., and according to which the passage is construed by the Greeks (except, perhaps, by the Quinta): Draw me, so will we, following thee, run (vid., Dachselt, Biblia Accentuata, p. 983 s.). In reality, this word needs no complement: of itself it already means, one drawing towards, or to himself; the corresponding (Arab.) masak signifies, prehendere prehensumque tenere; the root is מש, palpare, contrectare. It occurs also elsewhere, in a spiritual connection, as the expression of the gentle drawing of love towards itself (Hos 11:4; Jer 31:3); cf. ἑλκύειν, Joh 6:44; Joh 12:32. If one connects “after thee” with “draw me,” then the expression seems to denote that a certain violence is needed to bring the one who is drawn from her place; but if it is connected with “we will run,” then it defines the desire to run expressed by the cohortative, more nearly than a willing obedience or following. The whole chorus, continuing the solo, confesses that there needs only an indication of his wish, a direction given, to make those who here speak eager followers of him whom they celebrate.
In what follows, this interchange of the solo and the unisono is repeated:
4b If the king has brought me into his chambers,
So will we exult and rejoice in thee.
We will praise thy love more than wine!
Uprightly have they loved thee.
The cohortative נָרוּצָה (we will run) was the apodosis imperativi; the cohortatives here are the apodosis perfecti hypothetici. “Suppose that this has happened,” is oftener expressed by the perf. (Psa 57:7; Pro 22:29; Pro 25:16); “suppose that this happens,” by the fut. (Job 20:24; Ewald, §357b). חֲדָרִי are the interiora domus; the root word hhādǎr, as the Arab. khadar shows, signifies to draw oneself back, to hide; the hhěděr of the tent is the back part, shut off by a curtain from the front space. Those who are singing are not at present in this innermost chamber. But if the king brings one of them in (הֵבִיא, from בּוֹא, introire, with acc. loci), then - they all say - we will rejoice and be glad in thee. The cohortatives are better translated by the fut. than by the conjunctive (exultemus); they express as frequently not what they then desire to do, but what they then are about to do, from inward impulse, with heart delight. The sequence of ideas, “exult” and “rejoice,” is not a climax descendens, but, as Psa 118:24, etc., an advance from the external to the internal, - from jubilation which can be feigned, to joy of heart which gives it truth; for שָׂמַח - according to its root signification: to be smoothed, unwrinkled, to be glad
(Note: Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch's Indo-german.-sem. Studien (1873), p. 99f.)
- means to be of a joyful, bright, complaisant disposition; and גִּיל, cogn. חִיל, to turn (wind) oneself, to revolve, means conduct betokening delight. The prep. ב in verbs of rejoicing, denotes the object on account of which, and in which, one has joy. Then, if admitted into the closest neighbourhood of the king, they will praise his love more than wine. זָכַר denotes to fix, viz., in the memory; Hiph.: to bring to remembrance, frequently in the way of praise, and thus directly equivalent to celebrare, e.g., Ps. 45:18. The wine represents the gifts of the king, in contradistinction to his person. That in inward love he gives himself to them, excels in their esteem all else he gives. For, as the closing line expresses, “uprightly they love thee,” - viz. they love thee, i.e., from a right heart, which seeks nothing besides, and nothing with thee; and a right mind, which is pleased with thee, and with nothing but thee. Heiligstedt, Zöckler, and others translate: with right they love thee. But the pluralet. מֵישָׁרִים (from מֵישָׁר, for which the sing. מִישׁוֹר occurs) is an ethical conception (Pro 1:3), and signifies, not: the right of the motive, but: the rightness of the word, thought, and act (Pro 23:16; Psa 17:2; Psa 58:2); thus, not: jure; but: recte, sincere, candide. Hengst., Thrupp, and others, falsely render this word like the lxx, Aquil., Symm., Theod., Targ., Jerome, Venet., and Luther, as subject: rectitudes abstr. for concr. = those who have rectitude, the upright. Hengstenberg's assertion, that the word never occurs as in adv., is set aside by a glance at Psa 58:2; Psa 75:3; and, on the other hand, there is no passage in which it is sued as abstr. pro concr. It is here, as elsewhere, an adv. acc. for which the word בְּמישׁרים might also be used.
The second pentastich closes similarly with the first, which ended with “love thee.” What is there said of this king, that the virgins love him, is here more generalized; for diligunt te is equivalent to diligeris (cf. Son 8:1, Son 8:7). With these words the table-song ends. It is erotic, and yet so chaste and delicate, - it is sensuous, and yet so ethical, that here, on the threshold, we are at once surrounded as by a mystical cloudy brightness. But how is it to be explained that Solomon, who says (Pro 27:2), “Let another praise thee, and not thine own mouth,” begins this his Song of Songs with a song in praise of himself? It is explained from this, that here he celebrates an incident belonging to the happy beginning of his reign; and for him so far fallen into the past, although not to be forgotten, that what he was and what he now is are almost as two separate persons.