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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 5:14 - 5:14
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14a His hands golden cylinders,
Filled in with stones of Tarshish.
The figure, according to Gesen., Heb. Wörterbuch, and literally also Heilgst., is derived from the closed hand, and the stained nails are compared to precious stones. both statements are incorrect; for (1) although it is true that then Israelitish women, as at the present day Egyptian and Arabian women, stained their eyes with stibium (vid., under Isa 54:11), yet it is nowhere shown that they, and particularly men, stained the nails of their feet and their toes with the orange-yellow of the Alhenna (Lane's Egypt, I 33-35); and (2) the word used is not כַּפָּיו, but יָדָיו; it is thus the outstretched hands that are meant; and only these, not the closed fist, could be compared to “lilies,” for גָּלִיל signifies not a ring (Cocc., Döpke, Böttch., etc.), but that which is rolled up, a roller, cylinder (Est 1:6), from גָּלַל, which properly means not κυκλοῦν (Venet., after Gebhardt: κεκυκλωμέναι), but κυλίνδειν. The hands thus are meant in respect of the fingers, which on account of their noble and fine form, their full, round, fleshy mould, are compared to bars of gold formed like rollers, garnished (מְמֻלָּאִים, like מִלֵּא, Exo 28:17) with stones of Tarshish, to which the nails are likened. The transparent horn-plates of the nails, with the lunula, the white segment of a circle at their roots, are certainly, when they are beautiful, an ornament to the hand, and, without our needing to think of their being stained, are worthily compared to the gold-yellow topaz. Tarshish is not the onyx, which derives its Heb. name שֹׁהַם from its likeness to the finger-nail, but the χρυσόλιθος, by which the word in this passage before us is translated by the Quinta and the Sexta, and elsewhere also by the lxx and Aquila. But the chrysolite is the precious stone which is now called the topaz. It receives the name Tarshish from Spain, the place where it was found. Pliny, xxxviii. 42, describes it as aureo fulgore tralucens. Bredow erroneously interprets Tarshish of amber. There is a kind of chrysolite, indeed, which is called chryselectron, because in colorem electri declinans. The comparison of the nails to such a precious stone (Luther, influenced by the consonance, and apparently warranted by the plena hyacinthis of the Vulg., has substituted golden rings, vol Türkissen, whose blue-green colour is not suitable here), in spite of Hengst., who finds it insipid, is as true to nature as it is tender and pleasing. The description now proceeds from the uncovered to the covered parts of his body, the whiteness of which is compared to ivory and marble.
14b His body an ivory work of art,
Covered with sapphires.
The plur. מֵעִים or מֵעַיִם, from מִעֶה or מִעי (vid., under Psa 40:9), signifies properly the tender parts, and that the inward parts of the body, but is here, like the Chald. מְעִין, Dan 2:32, and the בֶּטֶן, Son 7:3, which also properly signifies the inner part of the body, κοιλία, transferred to the body in its outward appearance. To the question how Shulamith should in such a manner praise that which is for the most part covered with clothing, it is not only to be answered that it is the poet who speaks by her mouth, but also that it is not the bride or the beloved, but the wife, whom he represents as thus speaking. עֶשֶׁת (from the peculiar Hebraeo-Chald. and Targ. עָשַׁת, which, after Jer 5:28, like ḳhalak, creare, appears to proceed from the fundamental idea of smoothing) designates an artistic figure. Such a figure was Solomon's throne, made of שֵׁן, the teeth of elephants, ivory,
(Note: Ivory is fully designated by the name שֶׁנְהַבִּים, Lat. ebur, from the Aegypt. ebu, the Aegypto-Indian ibha, elephant.)
1Ki 10:18. Here Solomon's own person, without reference to a definite admired work of art, is praised as being like an artistic figure made of ivory, - like it in regard to its glancing smoothness and its fine symmetrical form. When, now, this word of art is described as covered with sapphires (מְעֻלֶּפֶת, referred to עֶשֶׁת, as apparently gramm., or as ideal, fem.), a sapphire-coloured robe is not meant (Hitzig, Ginsburg); for עלף, which only means to disguise, would not at all be used of such a robe (Gen 38:14; cf. Gen 24:65), nor would the one uniform colour of the robe be designated by sapphires in the plur. The choice of the verb עלף (elsewhere used of veiling) indicates a covering shading the pure white, and in connection with סַפִּירִים, thought of as accus., a moderating of the bright glance by a soft blue. For ספיר (a genuine Semit. word, like the Chald. שַׁפִּיר; cf. regarding סָפֵר = שָׁפֵר, under Psa 16:6) is the sky-blue sapphire (Exo 24:10), including the Lasurstein (lapis lazuli), sprinkled with golden, or rather with gold-like glistening points of pyrites, from which, with the l omitted, sky-blue is called azur (azure) (vid., under Job 28:6). The word of art formed of ivory is quite covered over with sapphires fixed in it. That which is here compared is nothing else than the branching blue veins under the white skin.