Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 2:10 - 2:10

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 2:10 - 2:10


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

When now Shulamith continues:

10a My beloved answered and said to me,

Arise, my love, my fair one, and go forth!

the words show that this first scene is not immediately dramatic, but only mediately; for Shulamith speaks in monologue, though in a dramatic manner narrating an event which occurred between the commencement of their love-relation and her home-bringing.

(Note: Grätz misinterprets this in order by the supplement of similar ones to make the whole poem a chain of narrative which Shulamith declaims to the daughters of Jerusalem. Thereby it certainly ceases to be dramatic, but so much more tedious does it become by these interposed expressions, “I said,” “he said,” “the sons of my mother said.”)

She does not relate it as a dream, and thus it is not one. Solomon again once more passes, perhaps on a hunting expedition into the northern mountains after the winter with its rains, which made them inaccessible, is over; and after long waiting, Shulamith at length again sees him, and he invites her to enjoy with him the spring season. עָנָה signifies, like ἀποκρίνεσθαι, not always to answer to the words of another, but also to speak on the occasion of a person appearing before one; it is different from ענה, the same in sound, which signifies to sing, properly to sing through the nose, and has the root-meaning of replying (of the same root as עָנָן, clouds, as that which meets us when we look up toward the heavens); but taking speech in hand in consequence of an impression received is equivalent to an answer. With קוּמִי he calls upon her to raise herself from her stupor, and with וְלְכִי־לָךְ, French va-t-en, to follow him.