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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 3:4 - 3:4
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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.
כִּמְעַט = 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, אָחַזְתִּי is not fitly rendered by teneo, but by tenui; and אַרְפֶּנּוּ dna ;iune לֹאוְ, not by et non dimittam eum, but, as the neg. of וָארפנו, et dimisi eum, - not merely et non dimittebam eum, but et non dimisi eum. In Gen 32:27 [26], we read the cogn. שַׁלֵּחַ, which signifies, to let go (“let me go”), as הִרְפָּה, 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 חֶדֶר lellar, which properly signifies (vid., under Son 1:4), recessus, penetrale; with אִמִּי, the seldom occurring (only, besides, at Hos 2:7) הוִרָה, part.f. Kal of הָרָה fo la, to conceive, be pregnant, which poetically, with the accus., may mean parturire or parere. In Jacob's blessing, Gen 49:26, as the text lies before us, his parents are called הוֹרַי; 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.