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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 4:9 - 4:9
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All that the king calls his, she now can call hers; for she has won his heart, and with his heart himself and all that is his.
9 Thou hast taken my heart, my sister-bride;
Thou hast taken my heart with one of thy glances,
With a little chain of thy necklace.
The Piel לִבֵּב may mean to make courageous, and it actually has this meaning in the Aram., wherefore the Syr. retains the word; Symm. renders it by ἐθάρσυνάς με. But is it becoming in a man who is no coward, especially in a king, to say that the love he cherishes gives him heart, i.e., courage? It might be becoming, perhaps, in a warrior who is inspired by the thought of his beloved, whose respect and admiration he seeks to gain, to dare the uttermost. But Solomon is no Antar, no wandering knight.
(Note: A specimen of Böttcher's interpretation: “What is more natural than to suppose that the keeper of a vineyard showed herself with half of her head and neck exposed at the half-opened window to her shepherd on his first attempt to set her free, when he cried, 'my dove in the clefts of the rocks,' etc., and animated him thereby to this present bold deliverance of her from the midst of robbers?” We pity the Shulamitess, that she put her trust in this moonshiny coward.)
Besides, the first effect of love is different: it influences those whom it governs, not as encouraging, in the first instance, but as disarming them; love responded to encourages, but love in its beginning, which is the subject here, overpowers. We would thus more naturally render: “thou hast unhearted me;” but “to unheart,” according to the Semitic and generally the ancient conception of the heart (Psychol. p. 254), does not so much mean to captivate the heart, as rather to deprive of understanding or of judgment (cf. Hos 4:11). Such denomin. Pi. of names of corporeal members signify not merely taking away, but also wounding, and generally any violent affection of it, as זִנֵּב, גֵּרֵם, Ewald, §120c; accordingly the lxx, Venet., and Jerome: ἐκαρδίωσάς με, vulnerasti cor meum. The meaning is the same for “thou hast wounded my heart” = “thou hast subdued my heart” (cf. Psa 45:6). With one of her glances, with a little chain of her necklace, she has overcome him as with a powerful charm: veni, visa sum, vici. The Kerı̂ changes באחד into בְּאַחַת; certainly עַיִן is mostly fem. (e.g., Jdg 16:28), but not only the non-bibl. usus loq., which e.g., prefers רָעָה or רָע עַיִן, of a malignant bewitching look, but also the bibl. (vid., Zec 3:9; Zec 4:10) treats the word as of double gender. עֲנָק and צַוְּרֹנִים are related to each other as a part is to the whole. With the subst. ending ôn, the designation of an ornament designed for the neck is formed from צַוָּאר, the neck; cf. שׂהֲרוֹן, the “round tires like the moon” of the women's toilet, Isa 3:18. עֲנָק (connected with אַחַד עֹנֶק, cervix) is a separate chain (Aram. עוּנְקְתָא) of this necklace. In the words עֲנָק אֲחַד, אֲחַד is used instead of אֶחָד, occurring also out of genit. connection (Gen 48:22; 2Sa 17:22), and the arrangement (vid., under Psa 89:51) follows the analogy of the pure numerals as נָשִׁים שָׁלשׁ; it appears to be transferred from the vulgar language to that used in books, where, besides the passage before us, it occurs only in Dan 8:13. That a glance of the eye may pierce the heart, experience shows; but how can a little chain of a necklace do this? That also is intelligible. As beauty becomes unlike itself when the attire shows want of taste, so by means of tasteful clothing, which does not need to be splendid, but may even be of the simplest kind, it becomes mighty. Hence the charming attractive power of the impression one makes communicates itself to all that he wears, as, e.g., the woman with the issue of blood touched with joyful hope the hem of Jesus' garment; for he who loves feels the soul of that which is loved in all that stands connected therewith, all that is, as it were, consecrated and charmed by the beloved object, and operates so much the more powerfully if it adorns it, because as an ornament of that which is beautiful, it appears so much the more beautiful. In the preceding verse, Solomon has for the first time addressed Shulamith by the title “bride.” Here with heightened cordiality he calls her “sister-bride.” In this change in the address the progress of the story is mirrored. Why he does not say כַּלָּתִי (my bride), has already been explained, under Son 4:8, from the derivation of the word. Solomon's mother might call Shulamith callathi, but he gives to the relation of affinity into which Shulamith has entered a reference to himself individually, for he says ahhothi callaa (my sister-bride): she who as callaa of his mother is to her a kind of daughter, is as callaa in relation to himself, as it were, his sister.