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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 6:5 - 6:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5a Turn away thine eyes from me,
For overpoweringly they assail me.
Döpke translates, ferocire me faciunt; Hengst.: they make me proud; but although הִרְהִיב, after Psa 138:3, may be thus used, yet that would be an effect produced by the eyes, which certainly would suggest the very opposite of the request to turn them away. The verb רָהַב means to be impetuous, and to press impetuously against any one; the Hiph. is the intens. of this trans. signification of the Kal: to press overpoweringly against one, to infuse terror, terrorem incutere. The lxx translates it by ἀναπτεροῦν, which is also used of the effect of terror (“to make to start up”), and the Syr. by afred, to put to flight, because arheb signifies to put in fear, as also arhab = khawwaf, terrefacere; but here the meaning of the verb corresponds more with the sense of Arab. r''b, to be placed in the state of ro'b, i.e., of paralyzing terror. If she directed her large, clear, penetrating eyes to him, he must sink his own: their glance is unbearable by him. This peculiar form the praise of her eyes here assume; but then the description proceeds as at Son 4:1, Son 2:3. The words used there in praise of her hair, her teeth, and her cheeks, are here repeated.
5b Thy hair is like a flock of goats
Which repose downwards on Giliad.
6 Thy teeth like a flock of lambs
Which come up from the washing,
All of them bearing twins,
And a bereaved one is not among them.
7 Like a piece of pomegranate thy temples
Behind thy veil.
The repetition is literal, but yet not without change in the expression, - there, גל מֵהַר, here, מִן־הַגִּל; there, הַקְּץ, tonsarum, here, הָרְחַ, agnarum (Symm., Venet. τῶν ἀμνάδων); for רָחֵל, in its proper signification, is like the Arab. rachil, richl, richleh, the female lamb, and particularly the ewe. Hitzig imagines that Solomon here repeats to Shulamith what he had said to another donna chosen for marriage, and that the flattery becomes insipid by repetition to Shulamith, as well as also to the reader. But the romance which he finds in the Song is not this itself, but his own palimpsest, in the style of Lucian's transformed ass. The repetition has a morally better reason, and not one so subtle. Shulamith appears to Solomon yet more beautiful than on the day when she was brought to him as his bride. His love is still the same, unchanged; and this both she and the reader or hearer must conclude from these words of praise, repeated now as they were then. There is no one among the ladies of the court whom he prefers to her, - these must themselves acknowledge her superiority.