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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 5:6 - 5:6
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
6 I opened to my beloved;
And my beloved had withdrawn, was gone:
My soul departed when he spake -
I sought him, and found him not;
I called him, and he answered me not.
As the disciples at Emmaus, when the Lord had vanished from the midst of them, said to one another: Did not our heart burn within us when He spake with us? so Shulamith says that when he spake, i.e., sought admission to her, she was filled with alarm, and almost terrified to death.
Love-ecstasy (ἐκστῆναι, as contrast to γενέσθαι ἐν ἑαυτῷ) is not here understood, for in such a state she would have flown to meet him; but a sinking of the soul, such as is described by Terence (And. I 5. 16):
“Oratio haec me miseram exanimavit metu.”
The voice of her beloved struck her heart; but in the consciousness that she had estranged herself from him, she could not openly meet him and offer empty excuses. But now she recognises it with sorrow that she had not replied to the deep impression of his loving words; and seeing him disappear without finding him, she calls after him whom she had slighted, but he answers her not. The words: “My soul departed when he spake,” are the reason why she now sought him and called upon him, and they are not a supplementary remark (Zöckl.); nor is there need for the correction of the text בְּדָבְרוֹ, which should mean: (my soul departed) when he turned his back (Ewald), or, behind him (Hitz., Böttch.), from דָּבַר = (Arab.) dabara, tergum vertere, praeterire, - the Heb. has the word דְּבִיר, the hinder part, and as it appears, דִּבֵּר, to act from behind (treacherously) and destroy, 2Ch 22:10; cf. under Gen 34:13, but not the Kal דָּבַר, in that Arab. signification. The meaning of חָמַק has been hit upon by Aquila (ἔκλινεν), Symmachus (ἀπονεύσας), and Jerome (declinaverat); it signifies to turn aside, to take a different direction, as the Hithpa. Jer 31:22 : to turn oneself away; cf. חַמּוּקִים, turnings, bendings, Son 7:2. חָבַק and אָבַק (cf. Gen 32:25), Aethiop. ḥaḳafa, Amhar. aḳafa (reminding us of נָקַץ, Hiph. הִקִּיף), are usually compared; all of these, however, signify to “encompass;” but חָמַק does not denote a moving in a circle after something, but a half circular motion away from something; so that in the Arab. the prevailing reference to fools, aḥamḳ, does not appear to proceed from the idea of closeness, but of the oblique direction, pushed sideways. Turning himself away, he proceeded farther. In vain she sought him; she called without receiving any answer. עָנָנִי is the correct pausal form of עָנַנִי, vid., under Psa 118:5. But something worse than even this seeking and calling in vain happened to her.