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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 3:6 - 3:6
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6 Who is this coming up from the wilderness
Like pillars of smoke,
Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
With all aromatics of the merchants?
It is possible that זֹאת and עֹלָה may be connected; but עָנִי זֶה, Psa 34:7 (this poor man, properly, this, a poor man), is not analogous, it ought to be הָעלה זאת. Thus zoth will either be closely connected with מִי, and make the question sharper and more animated, as is that in Gen 12:18, or it will be the subject which then, as in Isa 63:1; Job 38:2, cf. below Son 7:5, Jon 4:11, Amo 9:12, is more closely written with indeterminate participles, according to which it is rightly accented. But we do not translate with Heiligst. quid est hoc quod adscendit, for mī asks after a person, mā after a thing, and only per attract. does mī stand for mā in Gen 33:8; Jdg 13:17; Mic 1:5; also not quis est hoc (Vaih.), for zoth after mi has a personal sense, thus: quis (quaenam) haec est. That it is a woman that is being brought forward those who ask know, even if she is yet too far off to be seen by them, because they recognise in the festal gorgeous procession a marriage party. That the company comes up from the wilderness, it may be through the wilderness which separates Jerusalem from Jericho, is in accordance with the fact that a maiden from Galilee is being brought up, and that the procession has taken the way through the Jordan valley (Ghôr); but the scene has also a typical colouring; for the wilderness is, since the time of the Mosaic deliverance out of Egypt, an emblem of the transition from a state of bondage to freedom, from humiliation to glory (vid., under Isa 40:3; Hos 1:11; Psa 68:5). The pomp is like that of a procession before which the censer of frankincense is swung. Columns of smoke from the burning incense mark the line of the procession before and after. תִּימְרוֹת (תִּיםֲ) here and at Job 3 (vid., Norzi) is formed, as it appears, from יָמַר, to strive upwards, a kindred form to אָמַר; cf. Isa 61:6 with Isa 17:6, Psa 94:4; the verb תָּמַר, whence the date-palm receives the name תָּמָר, is a secondary formation, like תָּאַב to אָבָה. Certainly this form תִּימָרָה (cf. on the contrary, תּוֹלָדָה) is not elsewhere to be supported; Schlottm. sees in it תִמְּרוֹת, from תְּמָרָה; but such an expansion of the word for Dag. dirimens is scarcely to be supposed. This naming of the pillars of smoke is poet., as Jon 3:3; cf. “a pillar of smoke,” Jdg 20:40. She who approaches comes from the wilderness, brought up to Jerusalem, placed on an elevation, “like pillars of smoke,” i.e., not herself likened thereto, as Schlottm. supposes it must be interpreted (with the tertium comp. of the slender, precious, and lovely), but encompassed and perfumed by such. For her whom the procession brings this lavishing of spices is meant; it is she who is incensed or perfumed with myrrh and frankincense. Schlottm. maintains that מְקֻטֶּרֶת cannot mean anything else than “perfumed,” and therefore he reads מִקְּטֹרֶת (as Aq. ἀπὸ θυμιάματος, and Jerome). But the word mekuttěrěth does not certainly stand alone, but with the genit. foll.; and thus as “rent in their clothes,” 2Sa 13:31, signifies not such as are themselves rent, but those whose clothes are rent (Ewald, §288b, compare also de Sacy, II §321), so וגו מקט can also mean those for whom (for whose honour) this incense is expended, and who are thus fumigated with it. מֹר .t, myrrh, (Arab.) murr (vid., above under Son 1:13), stands also in Exo 30:23 and Psa 45:9 at the head of the perfumes; it came from Arabia, as did also frankincense levōnā, Arab. lubân (later referred to benzoin); both of the names are Semitic, and the circumstance that the Tôra required myrrh as a component part of the holy oil, Exo 30:23, and frankincense as a component part of the holy incense, Exo 30:34, points to Arabia as the source whence they were obtained. To these two principal spices there is added מִמֹּל (cf. Gen 6:20; Gen 9:2) as an et cetera. רוֹכֵל denotes the travelling spice merchants (traders in aromatics), and traders generally. אֲבָקָה, which is related to אָבָק as powder to dust (cf. abacus, a reckoning-table, so named from the sand by means of which arithmetical numbers were reckoned), is the name designating single drugs (i.e., dry wares; cf. the Arab. elixir = ξηρόν).