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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Song of Solomon 7:1 - 7:1
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1a How beautiful are thy steps in the shoes,
O prince's daughter!
The noun נָדִיב, which signifies noble in disposition, and then noble by birth and rank (cf. the reverse relation of the meanings in generosus), is in the latter sense synon. and parallel to מֶלֶךְ and שַׂר; Shulamith is here called a prince's daughter because she was raised to the rank of which Hannah, 1Sa 2:8, cf. Psa 113:8, speaks, and to which she herself, 6:12 points. Her beauty, from the first associated with unaffected dignity, now appears in native princely grace and majesty. פַּעַם (from פָּעַם, pulsare, as in nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus) signifies step and foot, - in the latter sense the poet. Heb. and the vulgar Phoen. word for רֶגֶל; here the meanings pes and passus (Fr. pas, dance-step) flow into each other. The praise of the spectators now turns from the feet of the dancer to her thighs:
1b The vibration of thy thighs like ornamental chains,
The work of an artist's hands.
The double-sided thighs, viewed from the spine and the lower part of the back, are called מָתְנַיִם; from the upper part of the legs upwards, and the breast downwards (the lumbar region), thus seen on the front and sidewise, חֲלָצַיִם or יְרֵכַיִם. Here the manifold twistings and windings of the upper part of the body by means of the thigh-joint are meant; such movements of a circular kind are called חַמּוּקִים, from חָמַק, Son 5:6. חֲלָאִים is the plur. of חֲלִי = (Arab.) ḥaly, as חְבָאִים (gazelles) of צְבִי = zaby. The sing. חֲלִי (or חֶלְיָה = Arab. hulyah) signifies a female ornament, consisting of gold, silver, or precious stones, and that (according to the connection, Pro 25:2; Hos 2:15) for the neck or the breast as a whole; the plur. חל, occurring only here, is therefore chosen because the bendings of the loins, full of life and beauty, are compared to the free swingings to and fro of such an ornament, and thus to a connected ornament of chains; for חם are not the beauty-curves of the thighs at rest, - the connection here requires movement. In accordance with the united idea of חל, the appos. is not מעֲשֵׂי, but (according to the Palestin.) מעֲשֵׂה (lxx, Targ., Syr., Venet.). The artist is called אָמָּן (ommân) (the forms אָמָן and אָמָן are also found), Syr. avmon, Jewish-Aram. אוּמָן; he has, as the master of stability, a name like יָמִין, the right hand: the hand, and especially the right hand, is the artifex among the members.
(Note: Vid., Ryssel's Die Syn. d. Wahren u. Guten in d. Sem. Spr. (1873), p. 12.)
The eulogists pass from the loins to the middle part of the body. In dancing, especially in the Oriental style of dancing, which is the mimic representation of animated feeling, the breast and the body are raised, and the forms of the body appear through the clothing.