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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 5:5 - 5:5
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5 I arose to open to my beloved,
And my hands dropped with myrrh,
And my fingers with liquid myrrh,
On the handle of the bolt.
The personal pron. אֲנִי stands without emphasis before the verb which already contains it; the common language of the people delights in such particularity. The Book of Hosea, the Ephraimite prophet's work, is marked by such a style. עֹבֵר מוֹר, with which the parallel clause goes beyond the simple mōr, is myrrh flowing over, dropping out of itself, i.e., that which breaks through the bark of the balsamodendron myrrha, or which flows out if an incision is made in it; myrrha stacte, of which Pliny (xii. 35) says: cui nulla praefertur, otherwise דְּרוֹר מֹר, from דָּרַר, to gush out, to pour itself forth in rich jets. He has come perfumed as if for a festival, and the costly ointment which he brought with him has dropped on the handles of the bolts (מַנְעוּל, keeping locked, after the form מַלְבּוּשׁ, drawing on), viz., the inner bolt, which he wished to withdraw. A classical parallel is found in Lucretius, iv. 1171:
“At lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepe
Floribus et sertis operit postesque superbos
Unguit amaracino” ...
Böttch. here puts to Hitzig the question, “Did the shepherd, the peasant of Engedi, bring with him oil of myrrh?” Rejecting this reasonable explanation, he supposes that the Shulamitess, still in Solomon's care, on rising up quickly dipped her hand in the oil of myrrh, that she might refresh her beloved. She thus had it near her before her bed, as a sick person her decoction. The right answer was, that the visitant by night is not that imaginary personage, but it is Solomon. She had dreamed that he stood before her door and knocked. But finding no response, he again in a moment withdrew, when it was proved that Shulamith did not requite his love and come forth to meet it in its fulness as she ought.