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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 5:10 - 5:10
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Hereupon Shulamith describes to them who ask what her beloved is. He is the fairest of men. Everything that is glorious in the kingdom of nature, and, so far as her look extends, everything in the sphere of art, she appropriates, so as to present a picture of his external appearance. Whatever is precious, lovely, and grand, is all combined in the living beauty of his person.
(Note: Hengstenberg finds in this eulogium, on the supposition that Solomon is the author, and is the person who is here described, incomprehensible self-praise. But he does not certainly say all this immediately of himself, but puts it into the mouth of Shulamith, whose love he gained. But love idealizes; she sees him whom she loves, not as others see him, - she sees him in her own transforming light.)
She first praises the mingling of colours in the countenance of her beloved.
10 My beloved is dazzling white and ruddy,
Distinguised above ten thousand.
The verbal root צח has the primary idea of purity, i.e., freedom from disturbance and muddiness, which, in the stems springing from it, and in their manifold uses, is transferred to undisturbed health (Arab. ṣaḥḥ, cf. baria, of smoothness of the skin), a temperate stomach and clear head, but particularly to the clearness and sunny brightness of the heavens, to dazzling whiteness (צָחַח, Lam 4:7; cf. צָחַר), and then to parched dryness, resulting from the intense and continued rays of the sun; צַח is here adj. from צָחַח, Lam 4:7, bearing almost the same relation to לָבָן as λαμπρός to λευκός, cogn. with lucere. אָדוֹם, R. דם, to condense, is properly dark-red, called by the Turks kuju kirmesi (from kuju, thick, close, dark), by the French rouge foncé, of the same root as דַּם, the name for blood, or a thick and dark fluid. White, and indeed a dazzling white, is the colour of his flesh, and redness, deep redness, the colour of his blood tinging his flesh. Whiteness among all the race-colours is the one which best accords with the dignity of man; pure delicate whiteness is among the Caucasian races a mark of high rank, of superior training, of hereditary nobility; wherefore, Lam 4:7, the appearance of the nobles of Jerusalem is likened in whiteness to snow and milk, in redness to corals; and Homer, Il. iv. 141, says of Menelaus that he appeared stained with gore, “as when some woman tinges ivory with purple colour.” In this mingling of white and red, this fulness of life and beauty, he is דָּגוּל, distinguished above myriads. The old translators render dagul by “chosen” (Aquila, Symm., Syr., Jerome, Luther), the lxx by ἐκλελοχισμένος, e cohorte selectus; but it means “bannered” (degel, Son 2:4), as the Venet.: σεσημαιωμένος, i.e., thus distinguished, as that which is furnished with a degel, a banner, a pennon. Grätz takes dagul as the Greek σημειωτός (noted). With רְבָבָן, as a designation of an inconceivable number, Rashi rightly compares Eze 16:7. Since the “ten thousand” are here though of, not in the same manner as דגולים, the particle min is not the compar. magis quam, but, as at Gen 3:14; Jdg 5:24; Isa 52:14, prae, making conspicuous (cf. Virgil, Aen. v. 435, prae omnibus unum). After this praise of the bright blooming countenance, which in general distinguished the personal appearance of her beloved, so far as it was directly visible, there now follows a detailed description, beginning with his head.