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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 1:9 - 1:9
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Solomon, while he was absent during the first scene, is now present. It is generally acknowledged that the words which follow were spoken by him:
9 To a horse in the chariot of Pharaoh Do I compare thee, my love.
10 Beautiful are thy cheeks in the chains, Thy neck in the necklaces.
11 Golden chains will we make for thee, With points of silv.
Till now, Shulamith was alone with the ladies of the palace in the banqueting-chamber. Solomon now comes from the banquet-hall of the men (Son 1:12); and to Son 2:7, to which this scene extends, we have to think of the women of the palace as still present, although not hearing what Solomon says to Shulamith. He addresses her, “my love:” she is not yet his bride. רַעְיָה (female friend), from רָעַי (רָעָה), to guard, care for, tend, ethically: to delight in something particularly, to take pleasure in intercourse with one, is formed in the same way as נעֲרָה; the mas. is רֵעֶה (= ra'j), abbreviated רֵעַ, whence the fem. rǎ'yāh (Jdg 11:37; Chethı̂b), as well as rē'āh, also with reference to the ground-form. At once, in the first words used by Solomon, one recognises a Philip, i.e., a man fond of horses, - an important feature in the character of the sage (vid., Sur. 38 of the Koran), - and that, one fond of Egyptian horses: Solomon carried on an extensive importation of horses from Egypt and other countries (2Ch 9:28); he possessed 1400 war-chariots and 12, 000 horsemen (1Ki 10:26); the number of stalls of horses for his chariots was still greater (1Ki 5:6) [4:26]. Horace (Ode iii. 11) compares a young sprightly maiden to a nimble and timid equa trima; Anacreon (60) addresses such an one: “thou Thracian filly;” and Theocritus says (Idyl xviii. 30, 31):
“As towers the cypress mid the garden's bloom,
As in the chariot proud Thessalian steed,
Thus graceful rose-complexioned Helen moves.”
But how it could occur to the author of the Song to begin the praise of the beauty of a shepherdess by saying that she is like a horse in Pharaoh's chariot, is explained only by the supposition that the poet is Solomon, who, as a keen hippologue, had an open eye for the beauty of the horse. Egyptian horses were then esteemed as afterwards the Arabian were. Moreover, the horse was not native to Egypt, but was probably first imported thither by the Hyksos: the Egyptian name of the horse, and particularly of the mare, ses-t, ses-mut, and of the chariot, markabuta, are Semitic.
(Note: Eber's Aegypten u. die B. Mose's, Bd. I pp. 221f. 226; cf. Aeg. Zeitschr. 1864, p. 26f.)
סוּסָה is here not equitatus (Jerome), as Hengst. maintains: “Susah does not denote a horse, but is used collectively;” while he adds, “Shulamith is compared to the whole Egyptian cavalry, and is therefore an ideal person.” The former statement is untrue, and the latter is absurd. Sūs means equus, and susā may, indeed, collectively denote the stud (cf. Jos 19:5 with 1Ch 4:31), but obviously it first denotes the equa. But is it to be rendered, with the lxx and the Venet., “to my horse”? Certainly not; for the chariots of Pharaoh are just the chariots of Egypt, not of the king of Israel. The Chirek in which this word terminates is the Ch. compag., which also frequently occurs where, as here and Gen 49:11, the second member of the word-chain is furnished with a prep. (vid., under Psa 113:1-9). This i is an old genitival ending, which, as such, has disappeared from the language; it is almost always accented as the suff. Thus also here, where the Metheg shows that the accent rests on the ult. The plur. רִכְבֵי, occurring only here, is the amplificative poetic, and denotes state equipage. דִּמָּה is the trans. of דָּמָה, which combines the meanings aequum and aequalem esse. Although not allegorizing, yet, that we may not overlook the judiciousness of the comparison, we must remark that Shulamith is certainly a “daughter of Israel;” a daughter of the people who increased in Egypt, and, set free from the bondage of Pharaoh, became the bride of Jahve, and were brought by the law as a covenant into a marriage relation to Him.
The transition to Son 1:10 is mediated by the effect of the comparison; for the head-frame of the horse's bridle, and the poitral, were then certainly, must as now, adorned with silken tassels, fringes, and other ornaments of silver (vid., Lane's Modern Egypt, I 149). Jerome, absurdly, after the lxx: pulchrae sunt genae tuae sicut turturis. The name of the turtle, תּוּד, redupl. turtur, is a pure onomatopoeia, which has nothing to do with תּוּר, whence דּוּר, to go round about, or to move in a circle; and turtle-dove's cheeks - what absurdity! Birds have no cheeks; and on the sides of its neck the turtle-dove has black and white variegated feathers, which also furnishes no comparison for the colour of the cheeks. תּוֹרִים are the round ornaments which hang down in front on both sides of the head-band, or are also inwoven in the braids of hair in the forehead; תּוּר, circumire, signifies also to form a circle or a row; in Aram. it thus denotes, e.g., the hem of a garment and the border round the eye. In נָאווּ (vid., at 5a) the Aleph is silent, as in לֵאמֹר, אֹכַל. חֲרוּזִים are strings of pearls as a necklace; for the necklace (Arab. kharaz) consists of one or more, for the most part, of three rows of pearls. The verb חָרַז signifies, to bore through and to string together; e.g., in the Talm., fish which one strings on a rod or line, in order to bring them to the market. In Heb. and Aram. the secondary sense of stringing predominates, so that to string pearls is expressed by חרז, and to bore through pearls, by קדח; in Arab., the primary meaning of piercing through, e.g., michraz, a shoemaker's awl.
After Son 1:11, one has to represent to himself Shulamith's adorning as very simple and modest; for Solomon seeks to make her glad with the thought of a continued residence at the royal court by the promise of costly and elegant ornaments. Gold and silver were so closely connected in ancient modes of representation, that in the old Aegypt. silver was called nub het, or white gold. Gold derived its name of זָהָב from its splendour, after the witty Arab. word zahab, to go away, as an unstable possession; silver is called כֶּסֶף, from כָּסַף, scindere, abscindere, a piece of metal as broken off from the mother-stone, like the Arab. dhuḳrat, as set free from the lump by means of the pickaxe (cf. at Psa 19:11; Psa 84:3). The name of silver has here, not without the influence of the rhythm (Son 8:9), the article designating the species; the Song frequently uses this, and is generally in using the art. not so sparing as poetry commonly is.
(Note: The art. denoting the idea of species in the second member of the st. const. standing in the sing. without a determining reference to the first, occurs in Son 1:13, “a bundle of (von) myrrh;” Son 1:14, “a cluster of (von) the cyprus-flower;” Son 4:3, “a thread of (von) scarlet,” “a piece of pomegranate;” Son 5:13, “a bed of balm” (but otherwise, Son 6:2), Son 7:9, “clusters of the vine;” Son 7:3, “a bowl of roundness” (which has this property); Son 7:10, “wine (of the quality) of goodness;” cf. Son 8:2, “wine the (= of the) spicing.” It also, in cases where the defined species to which the first undefined member of the st. const. belongs, stands in the pl.: Son 2:9, Son 2:17; Son 8:14, “like a young one of the hinds;” Son 4:1; Son 6:5, “a herd of goats;” Son 4:2, “a flock of shorn sheep;” Son 6:6, “a flock of lambs,” i.e., consisting of individuals of this kind. Also, when the second member states the place where a thing originates or is found, the first often remains indeterminate, as one of that which is there found, or a part of that which comes from thence: Son 2:1, “a meadow-saffron of Sharon,” “a lily of the valleys;” Son 3:9, “the wood of Lebanon.” The following are doubtful: Son 4:4, “a thousand bucklers;” and Son 7:5, “a tower of ivory;” less so Son 7:1, “the dance of Mahanaim.” The following are examples of a different kind: Gen 16:7, “a well of water;” Deu 22:19, “a damsel of Israel;” Psa 113:9, “a mother of children;” cf. Gen 21:28.)
עִם makes prominent the points of silver as something particular, but not separate. In ניֲשֶׂה, Solomon includes himself among the other inhabitants, especially the women of the palace; for the plur. majest. in the words of God of Himself (frequently in the Koran), or persons of rank of themselves (general in the vulgar Arab.), is unknown in the O.T.
They would make for her golden globules or knobs with (i.e., provided with ...; cf. Psa 89:14) points of silver sprinkled over them, - which was a powerful enticement for a plain country damsel.