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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 2:11 - 2:11
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
11 For, lo! the winter is past,
The rain is over, is gone.
12 The flowers appear in the land;
The time of song has come,
And the voice of the turtle makes itself heard in our land.
13 The fig-tree spices her green figs,
And the vines stand in bloom, they diffuse fragrance; -
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and go forth!
The winter is called סְתָו, perhaps from a verb סָתָה (of the same root as סָתַר, סָתַם, without any example, since סְוּת, Gen 49:11, is certainly not derived from a verb סוּת), to conceal, to veil, as the time of being overcast with clouds, for in the East winter is the rainy season; (Arab.) shataā is also used in the sense of rain itself (vid., D. M. Zeitsch. xx. 618); and in the present day in Jerusalem, in the language of the people, no other name is used for rain but shataā (not metar). The word סְתָיו, which the Kerı̂ substitutes, only means that one must not read סְתוֹ, but סְתָו, with long a; in the same way עָנָיו, humble, from עָנָה, to be bowed down, and שְׂלָיו, a quail, from שָׂלָה, to be fat, are formed and written. Rain is here, however, especially mentioned: it is called gěshěm, from gāshǎm, to be thick, massy (cf. revīvīm, of density). With עָבַר, to pass by, there is interchanged חָלַף, which, like (Arab.) khalaf, means properly to press on, and then generally to move to another place, and thus to remove from the place hitherto occupied. In לוֹ הָלַךְ, with the dat. ethicus, which throws back the action on the subject, the winter rain is thought of as a person who has passed by. נִצָּן, with the noun-ending ân, is the same as נִיסָן, and signifies the flower, as the latter the flower-month, floréal; in the use of the word, נִצָּן is related to נֵץ and נִצָּה, probably as little flower is to flower. In hǎzzāmīr the idea of the song of birds (Arab. gharad) appears, and this is not to be given up. The lxx, Aquila, Symm., Targ., Jerome, and the Venet. translate tempus putationis: the time of the pruning of vines, which indeed corresponds to the usus loq. (cf. זָמַר, to prune the vine, and מַזְמֵרָה, a pruning-knife), and to similar names, such as אָסִיף ingathering of fruit, but supplies no reason for her being invited out into the open fields, and is on this account improbable, because the poet further on speaks for the first time of vines. זָמַר (זִמֵּר) is an onomatopoeia, which for the most part denotes song and music; why should זָמִיר thus not be able to denote singing, like זִמְרָה, - but not, at least not in this passage, the singing of men (Hengst.), for they are not silent in winter; but the singing of birds, which is truly a sign of the spring, and as a characteristic feature, is added
(Note: It is true that besides in this passage zāmǎr, of the singing of birds, is not demonstrable, the Arab. zamar is only used of the shrill cry of the ostrich, and particularly the female ostrich.)
to this lovely picture of spring? Thus there is also suitably added the mention of the turtle-dove, which is a bird of passage (vid., Jer 8:7), and therefore a messenger of spring. נִשְׁמַע is 3rd pret.: it makes itself heard.
The description of spring is finished by a reference to the fig-tree and the vine, the standing attributes of a prosperous and peaceful homestead, 1Ki 5:5; 2Ki 18:31. פַּג (from פָּנַג, and thus named, not from their hardness, but their delicacy) are the little fruits of the fig-tree which now, when the harvest-rains are over, and the spring commences with the equinox of Nisan, already begin to assume a red colour; the verb חָנַט does not mean “to grow into a bulb,” as Böttch. imagines; it has only the two meanings, condire (condiri, post-bibl. syn. of בָּשֵׁל) and rubescere. From its colour, wheat has the name חִטָּה = חִנְטָה; and here also the idea of colour has the preference, for becoming fragrant does not occur in spring-in the history of the cursing of the fig-tree at the time of the Passover, Mark (Mar 11:13) says, “for the time of figs was not yet.” In fig-trees, by this time the green of the fruit-formation changes its colour, and the vines are סְמָדַר, blossom, i.e., are in a state of bloom (lxx κυπρίζουσαι; cf. Son 7:13, κυπρισμός) - it is a clause such as Exo 9:31, and to which “they diffuse fragrance” (Son 2:13) is parallel. This word סמדר is usually regarded as a compound word, consisting of סַם, scent, and סְמָדָר, brightness = blossom (vid., Gesen. Thes.); it is undeniable that there are such compound formations, e.g., שַׁלְאֲנָן, from שָׁלָה and שָׁאַן; חַלָּמִישׁ, from (Arab.) ḥams, to be hard, and hals, to be dark-brown.
(Note: In like manner as (Arab.) karbsh, corrugare, is formed of karb, to string, and karsh, to wrinkle, combined; and another extension of karsh is kurnash, wrinkles, and mukarnash, wrinkled. “One day,” said Wetstein to me, “I asked an Arab the origin of the word karnasa, to wrinkle, and he replied that it was derived from a sheep's stomach that had lain over night, i.e., the stomach of a slaughtered sheep that had lain over night, by which its smooth surface shrinks together and becomes wrinkled. In fact, we say of a wrinkled countenance that it is mathal alkarash albayt.” With right Wetstein gathers from this curious fact how difficult it is to ascertain by purely etymological considerations the view which guided the Semites in this or that designation. Samdor is also a strange word; on the one side it is connected with sadr, of the veiling of the eyes, as the effect of terror; and on the other with samd, of stretching oneself straight out. E. Meier takes סמדר as the name of the vine-blossom, as changed from סמסר, bristling. Just as unlikely as that סָמַד is cogn. to חָמַד, Jesurun, p. 221.)
But the traditional reading סְמָדַר (not סְמָדָר) is unfavourable to this view; the middle ā accordingly, as in צְלָצַל, presents itself as an ante-tone vowel (Ewald, §154a), and the stem-word appears as a quadril. which may be the expansion of סִדֵּר, to range, put in order in the sense of placing asunder, unfolding. Symm. renders the word by οἰνάνθη, and the Talm. idiom shows that not only the green five-leaved blossoms of the vine were so named, but also the fruit-buds and the first shoots of the grapes. Here, as the words “they diffuse fragrance” (as at 7:14 of the mandrakes) show, the vine-blossom is meant which fills the vineyard with an incomparably delicate fragrance. At the close of the invitation to enjoy the spring, the call “Rise up,” etc., with which it began, is repeated. The Chethı̂b לכי, if not an error in writing, justly set aside by the Kerı̂, is to be read לֵכִי (cf. Syr. bechi, in thee, levotechi, to thee, but with occult i) - a North Palestinism for לָךְ, like 2Ki 4:2, where the Kerı̂ has substituted the usual form (vid., under Ps 103 introd.) for this very dialectic form, which is there undoubtedly original.