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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 6:13 - 6:13
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Encouraged by Shulamith's unassuming answer, the daughters of Jerusalem now give utterance to an entreaty which their astonishment at her beauty suggests to them.
13 Come back, come back, O Shulamith!
Come back, come back, that we may look upon thee!
She is now (Son 6:10.) on the way from the garden to the palace. The fourfold “come back” entreats her earnestly, yea, with tears, to return thither with them once more, and for this purpose, that they might find delight in looking up her; for בְ חָזָה signifies to sink oneself into a thing, looking at it, to delight (feast) one's eyes in looking on a thing. Here for the first time Shulamith is addressed by name. But הַשּׁוּ cannot be a pure proper name, for the art. is vocat., as e.g., הַבַּת ירו, “O daughter of Jerusalem!” Pure proper names like שׁלמה are so determ. in themselves that they exclude the article; only such as are at the same time also nouns, like יַרְדֵּן and לְבָנוֹן, are susceptible of the article, particularly also of the vocat., Psa 114:5; but cf. Zec 11:1 with Isa 10:34. Thus הַשּׁוּ will be not so much a proper name as a name of descent, as generally nouns in î (with a few exceptions, viz., of ordinal number, הֲרָרִי, יְמָנִי, etc.) are all gentilicia. The lxx render השׁו by ἡ Σουναμῖτις, and this is indeed but another form for הַשּׁוּנַמִּית, i.e., she who is from Sunem. Thus also was designated the exceedingly beautiful Abishag, 1Ki 1:3, Elisha's excellent and pious hostess, 2Ki 4:8 ff. Sunem was in the tribe of Issachar (Jos 19:18), near to Little Hermon, from which it was separated by a valley, to the south-east of Carmel. This lower Galilean Sunem, which lies south from Nain, south-east from Nazareth, south-west from Tabor, is also called Shulem. Eusebius in his Onomasticon says regarding it: Σουβήμ (l. Σουλήμ) κλήρου Ισσάχαρ καὶ νῦν ἐστὶ κώμη Σουλὴμ κ.τ.λ., i.e., as Jerome translates it: Sunem in tribue Issachar. et usque hodie vicus ostenditur nomine Sulem in quinto miliario montis Thabor contra australum plagam. This place if found at the present day under the name of Suwlam (Sôlam), at the west end of Jebel ed-Duhi (Little Hermon), not far from the great plain (Jisre'el, now Zer'în), which forms a convenient way of communication between Jordan and the sea-coast, but is yet so hidden in the mountain range that the Talmud is silent concerning this Sulem, as it is concerning Nazareth. Here was the home of the Shulamitess of the Song. The ancients interpret the name by εἰρημεύουσα, or by ἐσκυλευμένη (vid., Lagarde's Onomastica), the former after Aquila and the Quinta, the latter after Symm. The Targum has the interpretation: השׁלֵמה באמונתה עם ה (vid., Rashi). But the form of the name (the Syr. writes שִׁילוּמִיתָא) is opposed to these allegorical interpretations. Rather it is to be assumed that the poet purposely used, not hshwb', but hshwl', to assimilate her name to that of Solomon; and that it has the parallel meaning of one devoted to Solomon, and thus, as it were, of a passively-applied שְׁלוֹמִית = Σαλόμη, is the more probable, as the daughters of Jerusalem would scarcely venture thus to address her who was raised to the rank of a princess unless this name accorded with that of Solomon.
Not conscious of the greatness of her beauty, Shulamith asks -
1ba What do you see in Shulamith?
She is not aware that anything particular is to be seen in her; but the daughters of Jerusalem are of a different opinion, and answer this childlike, modest, but so much the more touching question -
1bb As the dance of Mahanaim!
They would thus see in her something like the dance of Manahaaïm. If this be here the name of the Levitical town (now Mahneh) in the tribe of Gad, north of Jabbok, where Ishbosheth resided for two years, and where David was hospitably entertained on his flight from Absalom (Luthr.: “the dance to Mahanaaïm”), then we must suppose in this trans-Jordanic town such a popular festival as was kept in Shiloh, Jdg 21:19, and we may compare Abel-meholah = meadow of dancing, the name of Elisha's birth-place (cf. also Herod. i. 16: “To dance the dance of the Arcadian town of Tegea”). But the Song delights in retrospective references to Genesis (cf. Gen 4:11, Gen 7:11). At Gen 32:3, however, by Mahanaaïm
(Note: Böttcher explains Mahanaaïm as a plur.; but the plur. of מצנה is מצֲנוֹת and מחֲנִים; the plur. termination ajim is limited to מַיִם and שָׁמַיִם.)
is meant the double encampment of angels who protected Jacob's two companies (Gen 32:8). The town of Mahanaaïm derives its name from this vision of Jacob's. The word, as the name of a town, is always without the article; and here, where it has the article, it is to be understood appellatively. The old translators, in rendering by “the dances of the camps” (Syr., Jerome, choros castrorum, Venet. θίασον στρατοπέδων), by which it remains uncertain whether a war-dance or a parade is meant, overlook the dual, and by exchanging מחנַיִם with מצֲנוֹת, they obtain a figure which in this connection is incongruous and obscure. But, in truth, the figure is an angelic one. The daughters of Jerusalem wish to see Shulamith dance, and they designate that as an angelic sight. Mahanaaïm became in the post-bibl. dialect a name directly for angels. The dance of angels is only a step beyond the responsive song of the seraphim, Isa 6:1-13. Engelkoere angel-choir and “heavenly host” are associated in the old German poetry.
(Note: Vid., Walther von der Vogelweide, 173. 28. The Indian mythology goes farther, and transfers not only the original of the dance, but also of the drama, to heaven; vid., Götting. Anziegen, 1874, p. 106.)
The following description is undeniably that (let one only read how Hitzig in vain seeks to resist this interpretation) of one dancing. In this, according to biblical representation and ancient custom, there is nothing repulsive. The women of the ransomed people, with Miriam at their head, danced, as did also the women who celebrated David's victory over Goliath (Exo 15:20; 1Sa 18:6). David himself danced (2 Sam 6) before the ark of the covenant. Joy and dancing are, according to Old Testament conception, inseparable (Ecc 3:4); and joy not only as the happy feeling of youthful life, but also spiritual holy joy (Psa 87:7). The dance which the ladies of the court here desire to see, falls under the point of view of a play of rival individual artistes reciprocally acting for the sake of amusement. The play also is capable of moral nobility, if it is enacted within the limits of propriety, at the right time, in the right manner, and if the natural joyfulness, penetrated by intelligence, is consecrated by a spiritual aim. Thus Shulamith, when she dances, does not then become a Gaditanian (Martial, xiv. 203) or an Alma (the name given in Anterior Asia to those women who go about making it their business to dance mimic and partly lascivious dances); nor does she become a Bajadere (Isa 23:15 f.),
(Note: Alma is the Arab. 'ualmah (one skilled, viz., in dancing and jonglerie), and Bajadere is the Portug. softening of baladera, a dancer, from balare (ballare), mediaev. Lat., and then Romanic: to move in a circle, to dance.)
as also Miriam, Exo 15:20, Jephthah's daughter, Jdg 11:34, the “daughters of Shiloh,” Jdg 21:21, and the woman of Jerusalem, 1Sa 18:6, did not dishonour themselves by dancing; the dancing of virgins is even a feature of the times after the restoration, Jer 31:13. But that Shulamith actually danced in compliance with the earnest entreaty of the daughters of Jerusalem, is seen from the following description of her attractions, which begins with her feet and the vibration of her thighs.
After throwing aside her upper garments, so that she had only the light clothing of a shepherdess or vinedresser, Shulamith danced to and fro before the daughters of Jerusalem, and displayed all her attractions before them. Her feet, previously (Son 5:3) naked, or as yet only shod with sandals, she sets forth with the deportment of a prince's daughter.