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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 4:1 - 4:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1a Lo, thou art fair, my friend! yes, thou art fair!
Thine eyes are doves behind thy veil.
The Gr. Venet. translates, after Kimchi, “looking out from behind, thy hair flowing down from thy head like a mane.” Thus also Schultens, capillus plexus; and Hengst., who compares πλέγμα, 1Ti 2:9, and ἐμπλοκὴ τριχῶν, 1Pe 3:3, passages which do not accord with the case of Shulamith; but neither צָמַם, Arab. ṣmm, nor ṭmm signifies to plait; the latter is used of the hair when it is too abundant, and ready for the shears. To understand the hair as denoted here, is, moreover, inadmissible, inasmuch as מבעד cannot be used of the eyes in relation to the braids of hair hanging before them. Symm. rightly translates צמה by κάλυμμα veil (in the Song the lxx erroneously renders by σιωπήσεως behind thy silence), Isa 47:2. The verb צָמַם, (Arab.) ṣmam, a stopper, and (Arab.) alṣamma, a plaid in which one veils himself, when he wraps it around him.
(Note: Regarding this verbal stem and its derivatives, see Theé's Schlafgemach der Phantasie, pp. 102-105.)
The veil is so called, as that which closely hides the face. In the Aram. צְמַם, Palp. צַמְצֵם, means directly to veil, as e.g., Bereshith rabba c. 45, extr., of a matron whom the king lets pass before him it is said, פניה צימצמה. Shulamith is thus veiled. As the Roman bride wore the velum flammeum, so also the Jewish bride was deeply veiled; cf. Gen 24:65, where Rebecca veiled herself (Lat. nubit) before her betrothed. בַּעַד, constr. בְּעַד, a segolate noun, which denotes separation, is a prep. in the sense of pone, as in Arab. in that of post. Ewald, sec. 217m, supposes, contrary to the Arab., the fundamental idea of covering (cogn. בגד); but that which surrounds is thought of as separating, and at the same time as covering, the thing which it encompasses. From behind her veil, which covered her face (vid., Bachmann, under Jdg 3:23), her eyes gleam out, which, without needing to be supplemented by `עֵינֵי, are compared, as to their colour, motion, and lustre, to a pair of doves.
From the eyes the praise passes to the hair.
1b Thy hair is like a flock of goats
Which repose downwards on Mount Gilead.
The hair of the bride's head was uncovered. We know from later times that she wore in it a wreath of myrtles and roses, or also a “golden city” (עיר שׁל זהב), i.e., an ornament which emblematically represented Jerusalem. To see that this comparison is not incongruous, we must know that sheep in Syria and Palestine are for the most part white; but goats, for the most part, black, or at least dark coloured, as e.g., the brown gedi Mamri.
(Note: Burns, the Scottish poet, thinking that goats are white, transfers the comparison from the hair to the teeth:
“Her teeth are like a flock of sheep,
With fleeces newly washen clean,
That slowly mount the rising steep;
And she's twa glancin', sparklin' een.”)
The verb גָּלַשׁ is the Arab. jls, which signifies, to rest upon; and is distinguished from the synon. q'd in this, that the former is used of him who has previously lain down; the latter, of one who first stands and then sits down.
(Note: Ḳ'ad cannot be used of one who sits on the bed farash; in jalas lies the direction from beneath to above; in ḳ'ad (properly, to heap together, to cower down), from above to beneath.)
The nejd bears also the name jals, as the high land raising itself, and like a dome sitting above the rest of the land. One has to think of the goats as having lain down, and thus with the upper parts of their bodies as raised up. מִן in מֵהַר is used almost as in מִדְּלִי מַר, Isa 40:15. A flock of goats encamped on a mountain (rising up, to one looking from a distance, as in a steep slope, and almost perpendicularly), and as if hanging down lengthwise on its sides, presents a lovely view adorning the landscape. Solomon likens to this the appearance of the locks of his beloved, which hang down over her shoulders. She was till now a shepherdess, therefore a second rural image follows: