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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 5:4 - 5:4
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4 My beloved stretched his hand through the opening,
And my heart was moved for him.
חוּר,
(Note: Cf. the Arab. ghawr (ghôr), as a sinking of the earth, and khawr (khôr), as a breaking through, and, as it were, a piercing. The mouth of a river is also called khôr, because there the sea breaks into the riv.)
from the verb חוּר, in the sense of to break through (R. חר, whence also חָרַז, Son 1:10, and חָרַם, Arab. kharam, part. broken through, e.g., of a lattice-window), signifies foramen, a hole, also caverna (whence the name of the Troglodytes, חֹרִי, and the Haurân, חַוְרָן), here the loophole in the door above (like khawkht, the little door for the admission of individuals in the street or house-door). It does not properly mean a window, but a part of the door pierced through at the upper part of the lock of the door (the door-bolt). מִן־הַחוֹר is understood from the standpoint of one who is within; “by the opening from without to within,” thus “through the opening;” stretching his hand through the door-opening as if to open the door, if possible, by the pressing back of the lock from within, he shows how greatly he longed after Shulamith. And she was again very deeply moved when she perceived this longing, which she had so coldly responded to: the interior of her body, with the organs which, after the bibl. idea, are the seat of the tenderest emotions, or rather, in which they reflect themselves, both such as are agreeable and such as are sorrowful, groaned within her, - an expression of deep sympathy so common, that “the sounding of the bowels,” Isa 63:15, an expression used, and that anthropopathically of God Himself, is a direct designation of sympathy or inner participation. The phrase here wavers between עָלָיו and עָלָי (thus, e.g., Nissel, 1662). Both forms are admissible. It is true we say elsewhere only naphshi 'ālai, ruhi 'ālai, libbi 'ālai, for the Ego distinguishes itself from its substance (cf. System d. bibl. Psychologie, p. 151f.); meai 'alai, instead of bi (בְּקִרְבִּ), would, however, be also explained from this, that the bowels are meant, not anatomically, but as psychical organs. But the old translators (lxx, Targ., Syr., Jerome, Venet.) rendered עליו, which rests on later MS authority (vid., Norzi, and de Rossi), and is also more appropriate: her bowels are stirred, viz., over him, i.e., on account of him (Alkabez: בעבורו). As she will now open to him, she is inwardly more ashamed, as he has come so full of love and longing to make her glad.