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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 3:9 - 3:9
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Another voice now describes the splendour of the bed of state which Solomon prepared in honour of Shulamith:
9 A bed of state hath King Solomon made for himself
Of the wood of Lebanon.
10 Its pillars hath he made of silver,
Its support of gold, its cushion of purple;
Its interior is adorned from love
By the daughters of Jerusalem.
The sound of the word, the connection and the description, led the Greek translators (the lxx, Venet., and perhaps also others) to render אַפִּרְיוֹן, by φορεῖον, litter palanquin (Vulg. ferculum). The appiryon here described has a silver pedestal and a purple cushion - as we read in Athenaeus v. 13 (II p. 317, ed. Schweigh.) that the philosopher and tyrant Athenion showed himself “on a silver-legged φορεῖον, with purple coverlet;” and the same author, v. 5 (II p. 253), also says, that on the occasion of a festal procession by Antiochus Epiphanes, behind 200 women who sprinkled ointments from golden urns came 80 women, sitting in pomp on golden-legged, and 500 on silver-legged, φορεῖα - this is the proper name for the costly women's-litter (Suidas: φορεῖον γυναικεῖον), which, according to the number of bearers (Mart. VI 77: six Cappadocians and, ix. 2, eight Syrians), was called ἑξάφορον (hexaphorum, Mart. II 81) or ὀκτώφορον (octophorum, Cicero's Verr. v. 10). The Mishna, Sota ix. 14, uses appiryon in the sense of φορεῖον: “in the last war (that of Hadrian) it was decreed that a bride should not pass through the town in an appiryon on account of the danger, but our Rabbis sanctioned it later for modesty's sake;” as here, “to be carried in an appiryon,” so in Greek, προιέναι (καταστείχειν) ἐν φορείω. In the Midrash also, Bamidbar rabba c. 12, and elsewhere, appiryon of this passage before us is taken in all sorts of allegorical significations in most of which the identity of the word with φορεῖον is supposed, which is also there written פּוּרְוֹן (after Aruch), cf. Isa 49:22, Targ., and is once interchanged with פאפליון, papilio (parillon), pleasure-tent. But a Greek word in the Song is in itself so improbable, that Ewald describes this derivation of the word as a frivolous jest; so much the more improbable, as φορεῖον as the name of a litter (lectica) occurs first in such authors (of the κοινή) as Plutarch, Polybuis, Herodian, and the like, and therefore, with greater right, it may be supposed that it is originally a Semitic word, which the Greek language adopted at the time when the Oriental and Graeco-Roman customs began to be amalgamated. Hence, if mittā Son 3:7, means a portable bed, - is evident from this, that it appears as the means of transport with an escort, - then appiryon cannot also mean a litter; the description, moreover, does not accord with a litter. We do not read of rings and carrying-poles, but, on the contrary, of pillars (as those of a tent-bed) instead, and, as might be expected, of feet. Schlottm., however, takes mittā and appiryon as different names for a portable bed; but the words, “an appiryon has King Solomon made,” etc., certainly indicate that he who thus speaks has not the appiryon before him, and also that this was something different from the mittā. While Schlottm. is inclined to take appiryon, in the sense of a litter, as a word borrowed from the Greek (but in the time of the first king?), Gesen. in his Thes. seeks to derive it, thus understood, from פָּרָה, cito ferri, currere; but this signification of the verb is imaginary.
We expect here, in accordance with the progress of the scene, the name of the bridal couch; and on the supposition that appiryon, Sota 12a, as in the Mishna, means the litter (Aruch) of the bride, Arab. maziffat, and not torus nuptialis (Buxt.), then there is a possibility that appiryon is a more dignified word for 'ěrěs, Son 1:17, yet sufficient thereby to show that פּוּרְיָא is the usual Talm. name of the marriage-bed (e.g., Mezia 23b, where it stand, per meton., for concubitus), which is wittily explained by שׁפרין ורבין עליה (Kethuboth 10b, and elsewhere). The Targ. has for it the form פּוּרְיָן (vid., Levy). It thus designates a bed with a canopy (a tent-bed), Deu 32:50, Jerus; so that the ideas of the bed of state and the palanquin (cf. כילה, canopy, and כילת חתנים, bridal-bed, Succa 11a) touch one another. In general, פוריא (פורין, as is also the case with appiryon, must have been originally a common designation of certain household furniture with a common characteristic; for the Syr. aprautha, plur. parjevatha (Wiseman's Horae, p. 255), or also parha (Castell.), signifies a cradle. It is then to be inquired, whether this word is referable to a root-word which gives a common characteristic with manifold applications. But the Heb. פָּרָה, from the R. pr, signifies to split,
(Note: Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch's Indogerman.-semit. Studien, p. 72.)
to tear asunder, to break forth, to bring fruit, to be fruitful, and nothing further. Paaraa has nowhere the signification to run, as already remarked; only in the Palest.-Aram. פְּרָא is found in this meaning (vid., Buxt.). The Arab. farr does not signify to run, but to flee; properly (like our “ausreissen” = be tear out, to break out), to break open by flight the rank in which one stands (as otherwise turned by horse-dealers: to open wide the horse's mouth). But, moreover, we do not thus reach the common characteristic which we are in search of; for if we may say of the litter that it runs, yet we cannot say that of a bed or a cradle, etc. The Arab. farfâr, species vehiculi muliebris, also does not help us; for the verb farfar, to vacillate, to shake, is its appropriate root-word.
(Note: The Turkish Kâmûs says of farfâr: “it is the name of a vehicle (merkeb), like the camel-litter (haudej), destined merely for women.” This also derives its name from rocking to and fro. So farfâr, for farfara is to the present day the usual word for agiter, sécouer les ailes; farfarah, for légèreté; furfûr, for butterfly (cf. Ital. farfalla); generally, the ideas of that which is light and of no value - e.g., a babbler-connect themselves with the root far in several derivatives.)
With better results shall we compare the Arab. fary, which, in Kal and Hiph., signifies to break open, to cut out (couper, tailler une étoffe), and also, figuratively, to bring forth something strange, something not yet existing (yafry alfaryya, according to the Arab. Lex. = yaty bal'ajab fy 'amalh, he accomplishes something wonderful); the primary meaning in Conj. viii. is evidently: yftarra kidban, to cut out lies, to meditate and to express that which is calumnious (a similar metaphor to khar'a, findere, viii. fingere, to cut out something in the imagination; French, inventer, imaginer). With this fary, however, we do not immediately reach פּוּרְיָא, אַפִּרְיוֹן; for fary, as well as fara (farw), are used only of cutting to pieces, cutting out, sewing together of leather and other materials (cf. Arab. farwat, fur; farrā, furrier), but not of cutting and preparing wood.
But why should not the Semitic language have used פָּרָה, פְּרָא, also, in the sense of the verb בָּרָא, which signifies
(Note: Vid., Friedr. Delitzsch's Indogerm.-sem. Stud. p. 50. We are now taught by the Assyr. that as בן goes back to בנה, so בר (Assyr. nibru) to ברה = ברא, to bring forth.)
to cut and hew, in the sense of forming (cf. Pih. כֵּרֵא, sculpere, Eze 21:24), as in the Arab. bara and bary, according to Lane, mean, “be formed or fashioned by cutting (a writing-reed, stick, bow), shaped out, or pared,” - in other words: Why should פרה, used in the Arab. of the cutting of leather, not be used, in the Heb. and Aram., of the preparing of wood, and thus of the fashioning of a bed or carriage? As חִשָּׁבוֹן signifies a machine, and that the work of an engineer, so פִּרְיוֹן signifies timber-work, carpenter-work, and, lengthened especially by Aleph prosthet., a product of the carpenter's art, a bed of state. The Aleph prosth. would indeed favour the supposition that appiryon is a foreign word; for the Semitic language frequently forms words after this manner, - e.g., אַמְגּוּשׁא, a magician; אִסְמְּרָא, a stater.
(Note: Vid., Merx's Gramm. Syr. p. 115.)
But apart from such words as אֲגַרְטַל, oddly sounding in accord with κάρταλλος as appiryon with φορεῖον, אֲבַטִּיחַ and אֲבַעְבֻּעָה are examples of genuine Heb. words with such a prosthesis, i.e., an Aleph, as in אַכְזָב and the like. אַפֶּדֶן, palace, Dan 11:45, is, for its closer amalgamation by means of Dag., at least an analogous example; for thus it stands related to the Syr. opadna, as, e.g., (Syr.), oparsons, net, Ewald, §163c, to the Jewish-Aram. אֲפַרְסָנָא, or אֲפַּרְסָנָא; cf. also אַפְּתֹם, “finally,” in relation to the Pehlv. אַפְדוּם (Spiegel's Literatur der Parsen, p. 356).
(Note: אַּפוּרְיָא, quoted by Gesen. in his Thes., Sanhedrin 109b, is not applicable here, it is contracted from אד־פוריא (on the bed).)
We think we have thus proved that אַפִּרְיוֹן is a Heb. word, which, coming from the verb פָּרָה, to cut right, to make, frame, signifies
(Note: This derivation explains how it comes that appiryon can mean, in the Karaite Heb., a bird-cage or aviary, vid., Gottlober's ס בקרת, p. 208. We have left out of view the phrase אפריון נמטיי ליה, which, in common use, means: we present to him homage (of approbation or thanks). It occurs first, as uttered by the Sassanidean king, Shabur I, Mezia 119a, extr.; and already Rapoport, in his Erech Millîn, 1852, p. 183, has recognised this word appiryon as Pers. It is the Old Pers. âfrîna or âfrivana (from frî, to love), which signifies blessing or benediction (vid., Justi's Handb. d. Zendsprache, p. 51). Rashi is right in glossing it by חן שׁלנו (the testimony of our favour).)
a bed, and that, as Ewald also renders, a bed of state.
רְפִידָה (from רָפַד, R. רף, to lift from beneath, sublevare, then sternere) is the head of the head of the bed; lxx ἀνάκλιτον; Jerome, reclinatorium, which, according to Isidore, is the Lat. vulgar name for the fulchra, the reclining (of the head and foot) of the bedstead. Schlottmann here involuntarily bears testimony that appiryon may at least be understood of a bed of state as well as of a litter of state; for he remarks: “The four sides of the bed were generally adorned with carved work, ivory, metal, or also, as in the case of most of the Oriental divans, with drapery.” “Nec mihi tunc,” says Porpertius, ii. 10, 11, “fulcro lectus sternatur eburno.” Here the fulcrum is not of ivory, but of gold.
מֶרְכָּב (from רָכַב, to lie upon anything; Arab. II componere; Aethiop. adipisci) is that which one takes possession of, sitting or lying upon it, the cushion, e.g., of a saddle (Lev 15:9); here, the divan (vid., Lane, Mod. Egypt, I 10) arranged on an elevated frame, serving both as a seat and as a couch. Red purple is called אַרְגָּמָן, probably from רָגַם = רָקַם, as material of variegated colour. By the interior תּוֹךְ of the bed, is probably meant a covering which lay above this cushion. רָצַף, to arrange together, to combine (whence רִצְפָה, pavement; Arab. ruṣafat, a paved way), is here meant like στορέννυμι, στόρνυμι, στρώννυμι, whence στρῶμα. And רָצוּף אהֲ is not equivalent to רְצוּף אהֲ (after the construction 1Ki 22:10; Eze 9:2), inlaid with love, but is the adv. accus of the manner; “love” (cf. hhesed, Psa 141:5) denotes the motive: laid out or made up as a bed from love on the part of the daughters of Jerusalem, i.e., the ladies of the palace - these from love to the king have procured a costly tapestry or tapestries, which they have spread over the purple cuchion. Thus rightly Vaihinger in his Comm., and Merx, Archiv. Bd. II 111-114. Schlottmann finds this interpretation of מן “stiff and hard;” but although מן in the pass. is not used like the Greek ὑπό, yet it can be used like ἀπό (Ewald, sec. 295b); and if there be no actual example of this, yet we point to Ps 45 in illustration of the custom of presenting gifts to a newly-married pair. He himself understands אהבה personally, as do also Ewald, Heiligst., Böttcher; “the voice of the people,” says Ewald, “knows that the finest ornament with which the invisible interior of the couch is adorned, is a love from among the daughters of Jerusalem, - i.e., some one of the court ladies who was raised, from the king's peculiar love to her, to the rank of a queen-consort. The speaker thus ingeniously names this newest favourite 'a love,' and at the same time designates her as the only thing with which this elegant structure, all adorned on the outside is adorned within.” Relatively better Böttcher: with a love (beloved one), prae filiis Hierus. But even though אהבה, like amor and amores, might be used of the beloved one herself, yet רצוף does not harmonize with this, seeing we cannot speak of being paved or tapestried with persons. Schlottm. in vain refers for the personal signification of אהבה to Son 2:7, where it means love and nothing else, and seeks to bring it into accord with רצוף; for he remarks, “as the stone in mosaic work fills the place destined for it, so the bride the interior of the litter, which is intended for just one person filling it.” But is this not more comical, without intending to be so, than Juvenal's (i. 1. 32 s.):
Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis
Plena ipso ... .
But Schlottm. agrees with us in this, that the marriage which is here being prepared for was the consummation of the happiness of Solomon and Shulamith, not of another woman, and not the consummation of Solomon's assault on the fidelity of Shulamith, who hates him to whom she now must belong, loving only one, the shepherd for whom she is said to sigh (Son 1:4), that he would come and take her away. “This triumphal procession,” says Rocke,
(Note: Das Hohelied, Erstlingsdrama, u.s.w. The Song, a Primitive Drama from the East; or, Family Sins and Love's Devotion. A Moral Mirror for the Betrothed and Married, 1851.)
“was for her a mourning procession, the royal litter a bier; her heart died within her with longing for her beloved shepherd.” Touching, if it were only true! Nowhere do we see her up to this point resisting; much rather she is happy in her love. The shepherd-hypothesis cannot comprehend this marriage procession without introducing incongruous and imaginary things; it is a poem of the time of Gellert. Solomon the seducer, and Shulamith the heroine of virtue, are figures as from Gellert's Swedish Countess; they are moral commonplaces personified, but not real human beings. In the litter sits Shulamith, and the appiryon waits for her. Solomon rejoices that now the reciprocal love-bond is to find its conclusion; and what Shulamith, who is brought from a lowly to so lofty a station, experiences, we shall hear her describe in the sequel.